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Indian passport controversy: MEA reaffirms document issued 'to regulate departure' of citizens
Officials maintain passports have never been taken as proof of Indian citizenship. It is, however, among the dozen documents that can be used to prove eligibility to vote
- PUBLISHED: Wed 15 Jul 2026, 8:40 PM UPDATED: Wed 15 Jul 2026, 8:52 PM
The Indian passport is issued by the government to “regulate the departure” of its citizens from the country, a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) clarified at a media briefing in Delhi.
The issue had cropped up last month after an official had referred to the passport as a travel, not citizenship document, drawing criticism from opposition parties about the government denying citizenship rights to people who disagree with it.
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“An Indian passport is a document that, as per The Passports Act, 1967, is issued by the government of India to regulate the departure from India of citizens of India,” said Randhir Jaiswal, the MEA spokesperson. “It is issued after due verification laid out by an established process.” According to him, less than eight per cent of Indian citizens hold a passport.
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At an earlier MEA briefing on June 24, observed as ‘Passport Seva Divas’ (Passport service day), officials had described it as a travel document, not one to prove citizenship.
Opposition parties had lashed out at the government, questioning how a passport issued by the government could not reflect the person’s citizenship. The Congress accused the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government of trying to arbitrarily deny citizenship rights to Indians who have views opposed to theirs.
The government had clarified that no new decision had been taken on passports over the past 12 years. But officials maintained that the passport had never been taken as proof of citizenship.
However, the passport is among the dozen documents, any of which are needed by voter to prove eligibility to be on the electoral voting list.
Interestingly, Jaiswal did not mention anything about passport not being a document of citizenship. He repeated the fact that passports are issued to ‘Indian citizens’ and ‘citizens of India,’ as mentioned in the Passports Act.
The southern state of Kerala, accounting for a large number of expatriates in the Gulf, leads the country in terms of the number of passport holders.
According to government figures, the state with a population of about 37 million has nearly 10 million passport holders. It also leads in the number of women holding passports; they account for 42 per cent of passport holders in the state.
Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 240 million, has just 8.8 million passport holders. Maharashtra with a population of 130 million has 9.8 million people with passports.
