NEW DELHI — The Editors Guild of India has issued a fierce condemnation against the government following the stripping of voting and passport rights from R. Rajagopal, the former editor of the prominent national daily The Telegraph.
The Guild warned that Rajagopal’s plight is merely the tip of the iceberg, highlighting a sprawling bureaucratic nightmare that has systematically disenfranchised tens of millions of Indian citizens over the last several months.
The Bureaucratic Gridlock
Rajagopal’s ordeal began during a highly aggressive, ongoing voter list cleanup known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). After federal officials abruptly removed his name from the electoral rolls in West Bengal, passport authorities used his lack of voter registration to put a hard freeze on his passport renewal.
“If an influential public figure and veteran journalist like Rajagopal can be stripped of his core constitutional rights so easily, the plight of ordinary Indians across the country is likely far worse.”
The Editors Guild of India, official statement
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) Crisis
Launched by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on November 4, 2025, the SIR exercise was heavily promoted as a routine data-cleaning drive to weed out duplicate or ineligible voters. However, critics and civil society groups argue it has transformed into an unchecked purge.