CSDS Official Sanjay Kumar Booked Under Charges Related To False Information On Maharashtra Elections

Nagpur, Maharashtra: The Nagpur Police has registered an FIR against Sanjay Kumar, an official from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), following controversial social media posts related to Maharashtra elections.

The FIR has been filed under multiple sections of the BNS, including sections 175, 353(1)(b), 212, and 340(1)(2), indicating charges related to false information and potential election-related violations.

"We have filed an FIR based on a complaint which has been received from Tehsildar Ramtek. We will have to look at the severity of charges before calling him to join the investigation...but we will call him soon," Harsh Poddar, SP Nagpur (Rural) told ANI.

Sanjay Kumar is a prominent psephologist associated with CSDS.

CSDS official Kumar apologized for the tweet posted regarding Maharashtra Assembly Elections. He said that error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS, Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar posted on X.

In his apology note on X, he wrote, "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."

His post on X is deleted now.

His data was quoted by many INC & Opposition leaders for questioning Election Commission of India (ECI).

After Nagpur, another fresh case was filed against him in Nashik, Maharashtra. Nashik Police registered a case against Kumar for posting misleading information of voters.

"Sanjay Kumar from CSDS, has posted  misleading information of  voters of 126-Devlali AC for LS-2024 and MH LA-2024, offence is registered against him. It is requested to all citizens to verify the info only from ECI website," DEO Nashik posted on X. 

Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) on Wednesday issued a showcase notice to the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for allegedly manipulating data related to the Maharashtra elections.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his allegations about discrepancies in the 2024 state assembly elections and said that the data on which the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha based his claims, has been found to be "wrong".

Terming Rahul Gandhi a "serial liar", Fadnavis said he should apologise over his allegations and that "truth has come before the public".

"This is a fact that data was given by CSDS, and based on that data, Rahul Gandhi had made allegations on the Election Commission, and also he had accused us of our legitimately elected government. Today, CSDS has tweeted on X and has accepted that their data was wrong and they have apologised for their mistake. They have retracted all of their earlier data," Fadnavis told reporters.

Sanjay Kumar told ANI on Tuesday that he rechecked the data after receiving information that the information in his post was wrong."Actually, we (mistakenly) compared assembly constituency number 125 (Nashik West) data with 124 and 50 (Hingna) with 49, which is one row back; that's why the information we got was wrong," Kumar said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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