Wait for name in voter list, cops said: Top journalist's charge in passport row
For former The Telegraph editor R Rajagopal, renewing his passport should not have been difficult. After all, it was the same Kolkata address from which
For former The Telegraph editor R Rajagopal, renewing his passport should not have been difficult. After all, it was the same Kolkata address from which his passport was first issued in 2005 and later renewed in 2015. But this time, it was not to be. According to Rajagopal, his police verification was held up because his name no longer figures in West Bengal's electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Read Full Story With his name struck off the voter list and his passport renewal still uncertain, both developments unfolding over the past four months, the veteran journalist told IndiaToday.in that he was in a "state of limbo." His case has snowballed into a political controversy. The Congress, Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) have attacked the Centre, arguing that Rajagopal's experience reflects a wider erosion of citizens' rights. PASSPORT RENEWAL HITS A ROADBLOCK Speaking to IndiaToday.in, Rajagopal said the process began routinely after he completed his biometrics on March 19. The following day, his application was forwarded to Kolkata's Ballygunge Police Station for verification. He monitored the application through Passport Seva and waited for the police verification to be completed. In the first week of April, however, he received a call asking him to appear before the police station with his voter identity card. "I asked them what the purpose of the voter card was," Rajagopal recalled. "They said they wanted to generate an OTP to establish that it was my voter card." He then informed the officer that his name had already been deleted from the electoral rolls during the SIR process. According to Rajagopal, the police then asked him to produce several other documents, including his Aadhaar card, matriculation certificate, father's death certificate and a utility bill showing his Kolkata address.
"I went there with all the original documents and copies. They told me the process would be underway," he said. RAJAGOPAL'S FILE MOVED, BUT NOT FORWARD Days passed without any update. Rajagopal initially assumed the delay was because the police were occupied with the West Bengal election process. When he contacted the police station, he was told that "it has been sent." Having obtained his passport from the same Kolkata address in 2005 and renewed it from the same address in 2015, he believed the verification report had been forwarded to the Regional Passport Office or the Passport Seva Kenra. "I was so confident because it was only a renewal," he told IndiaToday.in. "For two decades, my passport has been issued and renewed from the same address." But the application status remained unchanged. When he contacted the police station again on May 19, Rajagopal said he was informed that the file had not been sent to the passport office but had instead been escalated to the Security Control Organisation (SCO), which functions under the Special Branch of Kolkata Police. According to him, he was told that the local police had "some doubts or problems" with his verification. 'WAIT UNTIL YOUR NAME IS RESTORED' Rajagopal said he visited the SCO office the following day, where an officer allegedly linked the verification to his deletion from the electoral rolls. "He told me, 'Since your name has been deleted from the SIR, until your name is restored in the voter list, we won't be able to clear your verification,'" Rajagopal said. He said he asked whether there was any government order or written instruction stating that passport renewal could not proceed if a person's name had been removed from the electoral rolls.
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