Saralnama
Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti-CSDS, apologized for erroneous Maharashtra voter data tweeted on August 17, which incorrectly showed large voter decreases in some constituencies between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The errors involved misreading data, with actual voter numbers showing modest increases. Following the apology, Maharashtra police filed an FIR against Kumar for spreading false information. The BJP used the mistake to challenge Congress’s “vote chori” allegations, which focus on voter list discrepancies in Karnataka, not Maharashtra. The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), under the Ministry of Education and funding CSDS, announced a show-cause notice to CSDS for alleged data manipulation and biased interpretation of Election Commission revisions. Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” claims are based on publicly available Election Commission data from Karnataka, which the EC has not refuted but has asked Gandhi to substantiate. The CSDS clarified it does not publish election data but conducts opinion surveys. The controversy highlights political tensions over voter roll accuracy and election integrity in India. (Updated 20 Aug 2025, 23:12 IST; source: link)