KOLKATA— R Rajagopal, the former Editor of The Telegraph and ardent critic of central government has spoken out after being cast into a state of severe “civic uncertainty” following the sudden deletion of his name from the electoral roll and the subsequent refusal of authorities to renew his passport. June 27, 2026, marked exactly 100 days since Mr Rajagopal completed his biometric formalities, yet his application remains blocked by an adverse police report directly linked to West Bengal’s contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
The veteran journalist’s ordeal began in March this year when his name was purged from the Ballygunge constituency electoral roll in Kolkata. The deletion was reportedly executed because the state’s SIR process could not trace either his name or that of his late father in the 2002 voters’ list.

Mr Rajagopal’s father was a Gandhian, a retired professor, and the former State Secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala who passed away in 2016. “I remain unable to understand how a conscientious voter like him could have been absent from the rolls,” Mr Rajagopal stated.

The SIR process in West Bengal has triggered widespread panic and confusion across the state, leaving nearly 27 lakh (2.7 million) residents excluded from the voters’ lists due to what officials have termed “logical discrepancies”. Like hundreds of thousands of others, Mr Rajagopal found himself stripped of his franchise. “No reason was furnished even after I submitted my matriculation certificate, and my appeal is now pending before one of the tribunals constituted pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions,” he explained, adding bitterly: “As a consequence, I was unable to vote in the recent election.”

However, the domestic disenfranchisement quickly escalated into an international travel ban. Despite completing his biometric data collection on March 19, 2026, the Kolkata Police refused to clear his verification on the grounds that he was no longer an enrolled voter.

“Today is the 100th day since my biometrics for passport renewal were taken,” Mr Rajagopal noted. “I was formally informed last week by the passport-issuing authority that Kolkata Police sent an adverse report, citing the deletion of my name from the voters’ list.”

The bureaucratic deadlock has carried a heavy personal toll. Mr Rajagopal was forced to miss his daughter’s wedding in San Francisco on April 17. “Needless to say, it would have been impossible for me to attend the wedding in the absence of an active passport, notwithstanding my possession of a valid ten-year US visa,” he said.

Trapped in a bureaucratic limbo, the former editor has spent his days hunting down decades-old family records to prove his lineage, despite recent government iterations that a passport is not definitive proof of citizenship.

“My days begin with checking my voting right appeal status and then the passport tracker,” Mr Rajagopal described. “Then I write to the college where my mother taught in 1965 and to her school from where she passed out in 1959, asking for any document that proves she existed.” While the school has cooperated, the college has not. He has also been forced to track down prohibition campaign activists in Kerala, “asking for any news clipping or photographs that show my father campaigning against illegal liquor vends and communalism.”

Alarmed by the systemic failure, Mr Rajagopal clarified that his public statement is not a plea for sympathy, but a stark warning about the weaponisation of bureaucracy against ordinary citizens.

“My intention has never been to project myself as a victim. Rather, I have wanted to underline a larger point: if someone who spent his professional life in journalism and edited a relatively known newspaper can encounter such difficulties, one can only imagine what the truly marginalised must endure.”
He also expressed profound disillusionment with the media fraternity, noting a total lack of public support or coverage from press guilds and mainstream publications. When asked if other editors were aware of his plight, he replied sharply: “Of course, several do. If they don’t, they should not be in the profession, don’t you think?”

“Yet, the complete silence of newspapers on this issue has confirmed my suspicion, now reinforced with personal experience, that so-called mainstream journalism has little to do with my life,” Mr Rajagopal concluded. “I do not ‘read’ any newspaper now. I glance at some but hardly find anything that piques my interest.”

Though ordered to appear before the Regional Passport Office in Calcutta “immediately”, Mr Rajagopal has been granted an appointment date of July 17, 2026, leaving him facing at least another three weeks of stateless-adjacent limbo.

Responding to the news, journalist-turned-politician Sagarika Ghose said: “Shocking, heart rending account . If this can happen to R. Rajagopal, former Editor of @ttindia , imagine what citizens with far fewer resources are enduring. Deleted from the electoral roll. Denied the right to vote. Passport renewal stalled for 100 days because of an adverse police report linked to that deletion. Forced to miss his own daughter’s wedding abroad. And then told a passport is “not proof of citizenship.” This is what the slow erosion of basic citizenship rights looks like . Even more disturbing is the silence of much of the mainstream media. WHY ARE SUCH HARROWING STORIES being INVISIBILISED.”