• By Aditya Jha
  • Wed, 20 Aug 2025 08:13 PM (IST)
  • Source:JND

Maharashtra News: Nagpur police on Wednesday registered an FIR against Sanjay Kumar, a key member of the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), allegedly for spreading misinformation related to the Maharashtra assembly election. The FIR has been lodged under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including sections 175, 353(1)(b), 212, and 340(1)(2). Earlier on Tuesday, Kumar deleted his posts related to the state assembly election by stating that his team misread the data. He further apologised for the mistake, further stressing that his intention was not to spread misinformation.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kumar stated that an error occurred while comparing data of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the state assembly polls. "I sincerely apologize for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS," Kumar stated in his post. "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 added.

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A massive political controversy erupted after Kumar deleted his post, as the ruling party, BJP, asked the opposition leaders to apologise for the "poll rigging" claims. Several prominent leaders of the NDA, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, stated that the Congress leaders accused the Election Commission of "poll rigging," citing CSDS data; however, the agency has deleted all the posts.

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"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 was quoted as saying by ANI.