NEW DELHI: Sanjay Kumar, a psephologist affiliated with Lokniti-CSDS, apologised on Tuesday for his post on the Maharashtra elections, which claimed a significant dip in the number of voters in two assembly constituencies compared to the Lok Sabha election held just months earlier.“I sincerely apologize for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in row was misread by our Data team. The tweet has since been removed. I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation,” the Lokniti-CSDS co-director wrote on X.
Sanjay Kumar’s apology triggered a massive backlash from the ruling BJP, which ruled out that it was “an honest error”.BJP I-T chief Amit Malviya wrote: The apology is in, and Sanjay Kumar is out. Incidentally, when was the last time this protégé of Yogendra Yadav ever got anything right? In all his projections in the run-up to every single election, the BJP is supposedly losing—and when the reverse happens, he turns up on TV justifying how the BJP won. Convenient. He must think TV audiences are fools.”“In his exuberance to feed Congress’s fake narrative on Maharashtra, CSDS put out data without verification. That is not analysis—it is confirmation bias,” Malviya wrote on X.
What was the claim?
In his now-deleted post on Maharashtra elections, Sanjay Kumar had claimed that in the assembly constituency 59 (Ramtek) number of voters in 2024 stood at 4,66,203 in the Lok Sabha polls and 2,86,931 in the assembly polls, claiming “-38.45% decrease in voters”.In his second claim, Kumar had said that in the assembly constituency (Devlali) number of voters in the Lok Sabha was 4,56,072, and during assembly elections it came down to 2,88,141, claiming “a 36.82% decrease”.Stepping up his attack on Sanjay Kumar, Amit Mavliya further wrote: “The very institution whose data Rahul Gandhi leaned on to defame the voters of Maharashtra has now admitted that its figures were wrong — not just on Maharashtra, but even on SIR.”
Apology amid Election Commission and INDIA bloc tussle
The faceoff between the INDIA bloc and the Election Commisson of India (ECI) intensified dramatically on August 7 when Rahul Gandhi ran through a presentation and levelled a “vote chori” charge against the poll body in the Mahadevapura assembly constituency of Congress-ruled Karnataka. The opposition had even referred to Kumar’s Maharashtra data to attack the poll body and the BJP.Rahul Gandhi on Sunday called the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision in the poll-bound Bihar a “conspiracy to steal” elections in the upcoming assembly polls.The same day, ECI hit back at Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, rejecting their allegations of vote theft and concerns related to SIR in Bihar as “misleading”. “Using words like vote chori to mislead people is a disrespect to the Constitution,” Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said. Addressing a press conference, the CEC rejected as baseless the allegations of double voting and “vote theft” and asserted that all stakeholders are working to make the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls a success in a transparent manner.The CEC said Rahul Gandhi should either give a declaration under oath within seven days on his allegations of irregularities in the voter list. “If no declaration under oath given within 7 days, claims will be considered baseless and invalid…,” he said, adding that those making unfounded allegations should apologise to the nation.INDIA bloc to impeach CEC?Amid the ongoing EC-opposition clash, INDIA bloc on Monday floated the possibility of moving for impeachment of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, whom it accused of acting like a “BJP spokesman” and intimidating opposition parties. It said Election Commission is no longer capable of ensuring a level playing field and, instead, is led by officers who thwart any attempt at probing voter fraud. While the proposal to move for Kumar’s removal was discussed briefly in a coordination meeting of opposition parties and is not final, the INDIA bloc chose to amplify it by confirming that the impeachment notice was brainstormed by the allies and drew wide consensus.