Maharashtra poll data error: Supreme Court pauses FIRs against Lokniti-CSDS co-director

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed FIRs filed against psephologist and Lokniti-CSDS co-director Sanjay Kumar. The FIRs were filed after Kumar's tweets claiming significant voter number discrepancies in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections went viral, India Today reported. 
Kumar, however, later deleted the tweets citing data errors.

After deleting the post, Kumar wrote on X: "I sincerely apologise 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."

Kumar's counsel told the top court bench that his client was a "person with impeccable integrity". "30 years of service to the nation and to the world. He’s highly respected. It was a mistake. He apologised. He deleted and apologised publicly," Kumar's counsel said.

After this, Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai issued a stay on FIRs filed against Kumar. 

In the deleted post, the psephologist claimed that a significant drop in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls was reported from two constituencies in Maharashtra in 2024. 

He said that Nashik West and Hingna constituencies in the state saw voter surges of around 43 per cent between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. 

Kumar's claims were taken up by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi as well as his allies as evidence of 'vote chori' in Maharashtra. BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya accused the Lokniti-CSDS co-director of spreading unverified data to fuel the Opposition's campaign. 

Furthermore, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) accused Lokniti-CSDS of trying to "create a narrative with the intention of undermining the sanctity of the Election Commission of India". The ICSSR also announced that it will issue a show-cause notice to the pollster for violating grant rules. 

"It has come to the notice of ICSSR that an individual holding responsible position at CSDS, an ICSSR-funded research institute, has made media statements that had to be retracted subsequently citing glitches in data analysis regarding elections in Maharashtra. Futher, the institute has published media stories based on biased interpretation of the SIR exercise by the Election Commission of India," the ICSSR said in a strongly-worded tweet.