Psephologist Apologises To EC For Misreading Data In Maharashtra Elections

Psephologist Sanjay Kumar, who is the co-director of Lokniti-CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), on Tuesday issued a clarification over a post on X concerning data of Maharashtra elections, which he deleted after issuing an apology.

Sanjay Kumar told ANI 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.

“The data provided by EC regarding Maharashtra state assembly polls shows that in six months, slightly more than 40 lakh voters have been added to the voters’ list,” he added.

Although Kumar acknowledged a “slight” unusual increase in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Maharashtra, he said that this could happen if the voters were left out in the updation of the voter list during the LS polls and found their way in the updation for the assembly polls.

“There was a slightly unusual increase in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections (in Maharashtra). However, it can happen. Suppose, if the voter list was being updated before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, maybe a very large number of people were left out. When you are updating the list during assembly polls, those voters get added,” Kumar said.

Meanwhile, 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 CSDS gave data, and based on that data, Rahul Gandhi had made allegations on the Election Commission, and also he targeted 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.

Earlier in the day, Sanjay Kumar apologised over a post concerning data of Maharashtra elections.

“I sincerely apologise for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS (assembly segments). 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. (ANI)