The passport of former Telegraph editor R Rajagopal, whose name was deleted from the West Bengal voters’ list during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), has been renewed after a second police verification.The initial verification resulted in an adverse report due to the SIR deletion, causing a delay of over 100 days.Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan urged West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari to intervene in the delay.A senior official confirmed that Rajagopal’s case was resolved with a clear police report, and his passport is expected to be delivered by Saturday.

This issue is not isolated; at least 17 similar cases were reported in Kolkata, where passport renewals were stalled due to SIR-related discrepancies.The police noted this is a procedural issue at the officer level and are reviewing all such cases.During the SIR, 9 million voter names were removed from West Bengal’s electoral rolls, with 6.3 million finalized and 2.7 million pending in appellate tribunals.The incident highlights challenges in electoral verification processes and their impact on citizens’ documents.