Two FIRs have been filed against psephologist Sanjay Kumar, who is the co-director of Lokniti-CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), in Nagpur and Nashik for allegedly sharing false details about voter data in Maharashtra through a social media post.

This action was taken a day after Kumar issued an apology for his post in which he had claimed a major drop in voter numbers in two assembly constituencies during the Maharashtra elections as compared to the 2024 general elections which were held around six months earlier.

“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 the ECI website,” the district election officer (DEO) Nagpur said in a post on X on Wednesday.

The DEO of Nashik made a similar post, stating that an FIR was registered against Kumar for his “misleading information” regarding the Devlali assembly constituency.

The FIRs against Kumar have been registered under BNS sections 175 for publishing false election statements, 353(1)(b) for spreading false information that causes public mischief, 212 for giving false information to a public servant, and 340(1)(2) for using forged documents as genuine.

On Tuesday, Kumar had written in a post on X: “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.”

In the deleted post, Kumar had claimed that in the Ramtek assembly constituency the number of voters had dropped from 466,203 in the Lok Sabha elections to 286,931 in the assembly elections which he said was a fall of 38.45%. He had also claimed that in Devlali the number of voters fell 36.82% from 456,072 in the Lok Sabha elections to 288,141 in the assembly elections.