Mumbai: Police in Maharashtra’s Nagpur and Nashik have booked Sanjay Kumar of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), for posting “misleading information” on voter data, a day after he deleted the post and apologised for the error.
Poll officials in Maharashtra said the Election Commission of India directed the Maharashtra state election office to look into the matter which in turn issued directions to district election officers to register FIRs against the Lokniti co-director.
Following the directions, two FIRs were registered against Kumar Wednesday—one in Nashik district and another in Ramtek in Nagpur district—based on complaints from tehsildars concerned.
“The Election Commission was of the opinion that there should be a proper complaint because the organisation created confusion in people’s minds regarding the election process. They don’t have the right to mislead the people and then apologise. And, so we decided to file a formal complaint,” said Nagpur District Election Officer Pravin Mahire.
“We got these orders from the ECI to the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office in the state and they forwarded it to us. Without proper information, one should not put out anything. Official information needs to be taken from the ECI website only,” he added.
The FIR has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 175 (false election information), 353 (1) (B) (statements that can cause to public mischief), 212 (false information to a public servant), 340 (use of forged documents or electronic records as genuine), and 356 (defamation).
ThePrint reached Sanjay Kumar via an email for his response. The report will be updated if and when a response is received.
@CEO_Maharashtra @ECISVEEP @SpokespersonECI
Sanjay Kumar from CSDS, has posted misleading information of voters of 126-Devlali AC for LS-2024 and MH LA-2024, case is registered against him. It is requested to all citizens to verify the info only from ECI website
— DEO Nashik (@Deonashik) August 20, 2025
Sanjay Kumar had put out a post on X 17 August that Ramtek and Devlali in Maharashtra had shown a 36-38% decline in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and assembly polls last year. He later deleted the post and put out an apology.
“I sincerely apologize 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,” he said in a post two days later.
Mahire said some people trusted the data that Sanjay Kumar put out and political parties started questioning and complaining to the Election Commission of India.
“When the ECI asked Sanjay Kumar, he apologised about it. But it doesn’t work like this,” the officer said.
ThePrint also reached Nashik District Election Officer Dr. Shashikant Mangrule but he did not respond to calls. The report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Devlali tahsildar Praveena Tadvi filed a complaint against Kumar at the Sarkarwada police station. “Since he presented wrong facts and misled (people) about the election process, we have filed a complaint against him,” she told the media.
On their X page, the Nashik DEO wrote, “Sanjay Kumar from CSDS, has posted misleading information of voters of 126-Devlali AC for LS-2024 and MH LA-2024, case is registered against him. It is requested to all citizens to verify the info only from ECI website”
Both the FIRs were registered based on the complaints of the tehsildar of Ramtek and Devlali.
“Now we have registered the complaint and the police will do their job. They are investigating,” Mahire said.
A senior police officer in Sarkarwada told ThePrint, “Yes, we have received the complaint and we are investigating the matter.”
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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