New Delhi: Congress general secretary KC Venugopal Tuesday met senior journalist R Rajagopal in Kolkata whose passport renewal was allegedly denied after his name was deleted from the electoral rolls during the SIR in West Bengal.
“This is pure vendetta politics, and he is being targeted because he is a true journalist who writes without fear. They are setting a dangerous precedent – where first they exclude you from the electoral rolls using SIR, and then snatch away your citizenship by denying you important documents one by one. The poor PDS beneficiaries are also being meted out with similar injustice – where deletion from electoral rolls is leading to denial of ration benefits by the WB State Government,” Venugopal said in a post on X.
“Mr. Rajagopal is an honest Indian citizen, and denying him his passport renewal is against the Constitution of India,” he said.
In his post, the Congress leader shared a picture of his meeting with Rajagopal and said he met the prominent journalist in Kolkata, alleging that he has been subjected to a “terrible ordeal” due to the blatantly “unconstitutional” SIR process – which has led to a denial of his passport renewal.
Rajagopal’s name has been in the electoral rolls of Kolkata since 2010, but since 2002 was taken as the base year and an inconsequential error in his 10th marksheet, his name was excluded in this SIR, the Congress general secretary said.
“While the appeal to his exclusion is pending, the passport authorities have rejected his passport renewal – despite him holding a passport since 2005, renewing it in 2015.
“The police called him to the police station and demanded seeing his voter ID card, and then withheld his passport renewal without conducting any home visit,” he alleged.
Venugopal alleged that while BJP-supported candidates like Parimal Nathwani get away with glaring errors in their election affidavits, ordinary citizens like Rajagopal are punished for minor errors in their 10th marksheets.
CPI-M MP John Brittas has sought External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s intervention over what he described as a larger constitutional concern arising from the denial of passport renewal based on exclusion from the electoral roll during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in West Bengal.
In a letter to Jaishankar Monday, Brittas referred to the case of senior journalist and former The Telegraph editor Rajagopal.
PTI
