--- title: "Stripped of His Vote and Passport, a Former Editor Becomes a Press-Freedom Flashpoint in India" description: "The Editors Guild of India has condemned the treatment of R. Rajagopal, a former editor of The Telegraph, after a contested electoral-roll revision in West Bengal removed his name from the voter list — a deletion that then stalled his passport renewal and, he says, caused him to miss his daughter's wedding abroad." category: "World" category_url: https://herald.la/category/world author: "Arman Petrosyan" published: 2026-06-29T08:48:00.000Z updated: 2026-06-29T08:48:00.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/stripped-of-his-vote-and-passport-a-former-editor-becomes-a-press-freedom-flashp tags: ["India", "press freedom", "Editors Guild", "West Bengal", "voting rights", "journalism"] --- # Stripped of His Vote and Passport, a Former Editor Becomes a Press-Freedom Flashpoint in India The Editors Guild of India has condemned the treatment of R. Rajagopal, a former editor of The Telegraph, after a contested electoral-roll revision in West Bengal removed his name from the voter list — a deletion that then stalled his passport renewal and, he says, caused him to miss his daughter's wedding abroad. A bureaucratic deletion has done to a veteran Indian editor what overt censorship rarely manages: it has quietly stripped him of the right to vote and the right to travel. ## 'Voteless and passportless' R. Rajagopal spent nearly three decades at The Telegraph, the Kolkata daily, latterly as its editor. This year, he says, he became neither able to cast a ballot nor leave the country. In March 2026 his name was deleted from the electoral roll in West Bengal's Ballygunge constituency during what authorities call a Special Intensive Revision, or SIR — a sweeping cleanup of voter lists that, by news accounts, placed millions of names under review or removed them. Rajagopal was given little explanation, [The Print reported](https://theprint.in/feature/ex-telegraph-editor-voteless-passportless-west-bengal-sir/2972101/). The consequences spread beyond the ballot. His passport had expired, and when he applied to renew it, the routine police verification came back adverse — citing his absence from the electoral roll. With the renewal stalled for months, he missed his daughter's wedding in the United States. He summarized the unofficial logic bluntly: if your name is not on the revised roll, do not come for a passport. ## Press bodies and the opposition react The [Editors Guild of India](https://www.deccanherald.com/india/slow-erosion-of-citizenship-rights-opposition-cites-former-editors-passport-voter-roll-ordeal-after-sir-in-west-bengal-targets-centre-4054968) condemned the treatment, warning that processes tied to the roll revision were being used — whether by design or administrative inertia — to determine citizenship rights. Opposition figures amplified the case. Trinamool Congress lawmaker Sagarika Ghose, herself a former journalist, called it "shocking" and warned that citizens with fewer resources than a prominent editor would fare worse. Congress and Left politicians described a "slow erosion of citizenship rights" and argued the revision had become, in effect, a tool to adjudicate citizenship rather than a neutral cleanup. ## The government's position Neither the West Bengal electoral authorities nor local police had issued a public statement on Rajagopal's individual case at the time of publication. The passport office's stance, as he describes it, is procedural: it cannot issue a document without cleared police verification, which the roll deletion has blocked. India's Election Commission has defended the revision as a legitimate, necessary cleanup; the Supreme Court declined to halt it outright but ordered the creation of appellate tribunals, led by retired judges, to hear individual challenges. Rajagopal's appeal is reportedly before such a body, even as the revision is set to expand to other states. ## A wider backdrop The case lands amid mounting concern over press freedom in India, which fell to 157th of 180 countries in [Reporters Without Borders' 2026 index](https://m.thewire.in/article/media/india-is-157th-out-of-180-countries-on-rsfs-2026-world-press-freedom-index), down from 151st a year earlier, with the group citing violence against journalists, concentrated media ownership and the use of harsh laws against the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented a series of recent detentions and prosecutions of Indian reporters. For Rajagopal's defenders, his case adds a quieter dimension to that record: not arrest or assault, but an administrative machinery that can, by accident or by intent, erase a journalist's most basic civic rights — and leave him with no clear way to get them back. ## Sources - [Ex-Telegraph editor says he is 'voteless, passportless' after West Bengal SIR](https://theprint.in/feature/ex-telegraph-editor-voteless-passportless-west-bengal-sir/2972101/) - ['Slow erosion of citizenship rights': Opposition cites former editor's passport, voter roll ordeal](https://www.deccanherald.com/india/slow-erosion-of-citizenship-rights-opposition-cites-former-editors-passport-voter-roll-ordeal-after-sir-in-west-bengal-targets-centre-4054968) - [India is 157th out of 180 countries on RSF's 2026 World Press Freedom Index](https://m.thewire.in/article/media/india-is-157th-out-of-180-countries-on-rsfs-2026-world-press-freedom-index)