Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday slammed Congress MP and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi after the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) retracted its data on Maharashtra elections and apologised for publishing incorrect information.
Hitting out at Gandhi over his allegations of rigging in Maharashtra assembly polls, Fadnavis said, “This is a fact that data was given by CSDS, and based on that data, Rahul Gandhi had made allegations on the Election Commission, and also he had accused us of our legitimately elected government.”
“Today, CSDS has tweeted on X and has accepted that their data was wrong and they have apologised for their mistake. They have retracted all of their earlier data,” he said.
Calling Rahul Gandhi “a serial liar”, the Maharashtra CM asked whether the Congress leader apologise for his allegations that were apparently based on unreliable data.
“Now the question remains whether Rahul Gandhi’s allegations, based on the same data, were huge. Now will Rahul Gandhi also apologise? I do not expect this, as Rahul Gandhi is a serial liar. That is why he will speak lies daily. Now he will again rely on the same data. I don’t have a doubt about this,” Fadnavis added.
His scathing remarks came after Sanjay Kumar, psephologist and co-director of Lokniti-CSDS, apologised for posting erroneous data.
“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,” Kumar said on X.
He further added the tweet with “incorrect data” has since been removed and that he had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation.
The CSDS director had ealrier shared data indicating major discrepancies in the number of voters in four Maharashtra constituencies. While two constituencies showed steep decline, the other two witnessed a sharp rise in voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections and assembly polls.