FIR filed against psephologist Sanjay Kumar for Maharashtra poll data error

The Maharashtra Police on Wednesday filed a case against Sanjay Kumar, a psephologist with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, for an erroneous claim that he had made in a social media post and subsequently retracted about voter numbers in the state.

The first information report has been filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to making false statements about an election, statements conducing to public mischief, furnishing false information to public servants and creating a false electronic record, ANI reported.

@ECISVEEP @SpokespersonECI @CEO_Maharashtra 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.— DEONagpur (@deo_nagpur) August 20, 2025

Kumar is a professor and co-director of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study for Developing Societies.

He had claimed on Sunday that two Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra – Ramtek and Deolali – had witnessed a significant drop in the number of voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the Assembly election held later that year.

In a social media post, which was later removed, Kumar claimed that there had been a 38.4% drop in Ramtek and a 36.8% drop in Deolali. The post included specific figures, citing...

Read more