The BJP has targeted the Congress's 'vote chori' campaign after Sanjay Kumar's apology
- Sanjay Kumar of CSDS apologised and deleted tweets on voter data errors in Maharashtra polls
- Claims of sharp voter changes in constituencies were based on misread data from 2024 polls, he said
- BJP accused Congress of spreading fake narratives using unverified CSDS data
Two days after he flagged significant voter additions and deletions in the Maharashtra Assembly election, psephologist Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has apologised and deleted the posts, triggering a massive political showdown.
The BJP has accused the research body of putting out unverified data to feed the Congress's "fake narrative". The main Opposition has responded that it used CSDS data, but also corroborated its findings based on evidence collected separately.
In a surprise development, Sanjay Kumar deleted his tweets that alleged a sharp rise and fall in the number of voters in several Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra and apologised for the "error".
"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," he said in a post on X.
The psephologist had claimed that the number of voters in the Nashik West and Hingna Assembly segments rose by 47 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, between the Lok Sabha election last and the Maharashtra polls earlier this year. He also claimed that the number of voters sharply fell in Ramtek and Devlali seats by 38 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively.
The claims provided fresh ammo to Congress in its 'vote fraud' offensive against the BJP and were shared by its top leaders in an attempt to corner the ruling party. With Sanjay Kumar now deleting his posts and apologising, the BJP has launched its counterstrike.
Senior BJP leader and the party's IT head, Amit Malviya, said the institution Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi relied on to make his allegations has now admitted that its figures were wrong. "Where does this leave Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, which brazenly targeted the Election Commission and went so far as to brand genuine voters as fake? Shameful," Mr Malviya said, demanding an apology from the Congress leader.
Sanjay Kumar's apology comes amid the Opposition's offensive against the Election Commission, accusing it of colluding with the ruling BJP to give the latter a poll advantage. Presenting the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency in Karnataka as a case study, Mr Gandhi has alleged 'vote theft' in polls. The Congress leader said the Opposition sensed a problem during the Maharashtra election and then started a probe. The INDIA bloc, which won 30 out of 48 Maharashtra seats in the Lok Sabha polls last year, could not even cross the 50 mark in the state polls just five months later.
The Election Commission has trashed these allegations and asked Mr Gandhi to submit an affidavit, reiterating these remarks, or apologise.
Despite Mr Sanjay Kumar's apology, the Congress is sticking to its guns. Party spokesperson Sujata Paul told NDTV that the CSDS is just one of the sources the Congress sourced its data from. "As far as we are concerned, we might have taken up this data, but we have also corroborated it with evidence that we have got from our sources, our workers, and the entire opposition that was fighting the elections together in Maharashtra," she said.
"The CSDS data was just used as additional evidence. And why he (Sanjay Kumar) apologised, that is his problem, not ours," she added.
