“This is a gross violation of the Grant-in-Aid rules of ICSSR, and ICSSR shall issue a Show Cause Notice to the Institute,” the ICSSR noted.Incidentally, the controversy kicked off after Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera posted a graphic on X on August 18 and claimed massive discrepancies between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly electoral rolls.Citing Lokniti-CSDS data, Khera claimed that Ramtek and Deolali constituencies lost nearly 40 per cent of their electorate within six months and on the other hand, Nashik West and Hingna gained between 43 per cent and 47 per cent.Sanjay Kumar, the professor and co-director of Lokniti, a research wing at the CSDS, on August 17, in his now-deleted X post, claimed that Nashik West’s electorate had swelled from 3,28,053 in the Lok Sabha rolls to 4,83,459 in the Assembly rolls, which was around 47.38 per cent. For Hingna, he claimed the increase was 42.08 per cent.These figures suggested abnormal and implausible growth. They were promptly amplified by opposition leaders, including Khera as they questioned the credibility of the Election Commission.However, on August 19, Kumar issued a public apology through his X post as he said, “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.” Even the Election Commission of India, while commenting on the data row, said, “CSDS Sanjay Kumar apologised for the tweet posted regarding Maharashtra assembly elections. He said that error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. TWEET is deleted now. His data was quoted by many INC & Opposition leaders for questioning EC.”
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