BJP tears into Cong as psephologist retracts wrong voter deletion figures

A row over alleged voter inflation in Maharashtra took a dramatic twist after psephologist and Lokniti-CSDS co-director Sanjay Kumar retracted figures he had earlier circulated on social media, admitting they were incorrect.

The BJP quickly seized on the admission to target the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi, accusing them of misleading the public and maligning the Election Commission (EC).

On Sunday, Kumar had claimed on X that in the Ramtek Assembly constituency, the number of voters in 2024 stood at 4,66,203 in the Lok Sabha polls and 2,86,931 in the Assembly polls, claiming "-38.45% decrease in voters". In his second claim, Kumar had said in the Devlali constituency, the number of voters in the Lok Sabha was 4,56,072, and during Assembly elections it came down to 2,88,141, claiming "a 36.82% decrease".

These figures were cited by Opposition leaders alleging irregularities behind the INDIA bloc’s defeat in the 2024 Assembly elections. But on Tuesday, Kumar deleted the post and issued an apology. “I sincerely apologise for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. An error occurred while comparing 2024 Lok Sabha and 2024 Assembly data. The data in a row was misread by our team. The tweet has since been removed. I had no intention of spreading misinformation,” he clarified.

The BJP, however, turned the retraction into political ammunition. Union Minister Jayant Chaudhary took a swipe at the Opposition, quipping that “an entire parliamentary session is on the verge of closure without meaningful participation by Opposition MPs.”

BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya accused Rahul Gandhi of “brazenly targeting the Election Commission” and “branding genuine voters as fake.” He wrote, “The very institution whose data Rahul Gandhi leaned on has now admitted that its figures were wrong. Shameful.”

In another barb, Malviya dubbed Kumar a “protégé of Yogendra Yadav” who frequently misreads electoral trends, alleging that his flawed data was used to “feed Congress’s fake narrative” on Maharashtra.

Union Minister Pralhad Joshi went further, demanding an impartial probe into how the “unverified” figures were circulated in the first place. “Rahul Gandhi keeps accusing the EC of bias and ‘vote chori.’ But now a senior CSDS psephologist has admitted his mistake. If ‘saving democracy’ means baselessly attacking the EC, this fiasco exposes the real culprit. Congress must apologise to the people,” Joshi said.

With Kumar’s clarification, the Opposition finds itself on the defensive, even as the BJP presses Rahul Gandhi to call off his Bihar march and issue an unconditional apology.