FIRs filed against psephologist Sanjay Kumar but claims about voter roll errors remain unaddressed

It’s been a tough couple of days for Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Delhi-based think tank Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

On August 17, Kumar had tweeted out erroneous data, claiming significant changes in the voter list for four Maharashtra constituencies in the six months between the Lok Sabha elections in the middle of last year and the Assembly elections in November.

He apologised for the mistake, but it led to an avalanche of criticism and even abuse from Bharatiya Janata Party supporters. On Wednesday, the police in BJP-ruled Maharashtra filed two FIRs against him.

The BJP is attempting to use Kumar’s mistake to rebut the Congress’s allegations that the ruling party has been guilty of “vote chori” or vote stealing, winning elections by manipulating voter lists.

In fact, the Congress’s “vote chori” campaign started with a press conference on August 7 by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi presenting instances of faulty voter rolls in the Mahadevapura assembly constituency in Karnataka. No data on Maharashtra was used at all.

The BJP’s counter-campaign is using Kumar’s error about Maharashtra to deflect attention from discrepancies in the voter list in Karnataka that the Election Commission is yet to explain.

Kumar’s claims

On August 17, Sanjay Kumar tweeted some startling numbers.

He wrote that the Ramtek Assembly constituency in Maharashtra...

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