FIR filed against Sanjay Kumar of CSDS over social media posts regarding Maharashtra elections

Nagpur (Maharashtra) [India], August 20 (ANI): Nagpur and Nashik Police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against psephologist Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti-CSDS, following a controversial social media post related to Maharashtra elections.
Officials said the FIR has been filed under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, 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.
District Election Officer Nagpur said a FIR has been filed. "Sanjay Kumar from CSDS, has posted misleading information of voters of 59-Ramtek AC for LS-2024 and MH LA-2024, FIR is registered against him. It is requested to all citizens to verify the info only from ECI website," the DEO said in a post on X.
A case against Sanjay Kumar has also been filed by Nashik Police.
"Sanjay Kumar from CSDS, has posted misleading information of voters of 126-Devlali AC for LS-2024 and MH LA-2024, case is registered against him. It is requested to all citizens to verify the info only from ECI website," District Election Officer Nashik posted on X.
On Tuesday, Kumar issued a public apology on X, acknowledging the error in his original post.
"I sincerely apologise for the tweets posted regarding the Maharashtra elections. An error occurred while comparing the data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in the row was misread by our Data team. The tweet has since been removed," Kumar said.
"I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation," he added.
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. (ANI)