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In a press conference, Bhatia said Kumar deleted the post after 40 hours, between which the wrong CSDS data was used for “propaganda” by Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Rahul Gandhi. (PTI Screenshot, Express File Photos)
The BJP on Tuesday attacked the Congress and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for making “false and baseless allegations of vote chori” against the Election Commission in collusion with a Delhi-based think tank.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia linked the Congress to a deleted X post of Lokniti CSDS co-director Sanjay Kumar in which he had claimed that two constituencies in Maharashtra had shown a significant fall in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Kumar posted on X Tuesday that his data team had misread the numbers and apologised for his previous claim.
In a press conference, Bhatia said Kumar deleted the post after 40 hours, between which the wrong CSDS data was used for “propaganda” by Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Rahul Gandhi.
“Congress leader Pawan Khera tweets on this and then deletes. Rahul Gandhi’s baseless allegations are also based on CSDS data,” Bhatia SAID.
He said 34,000 people viewed Kumar’s post before it was deleted. “They call themselves a survey agency but are puppets in the hands of leaders like Rahul Gandhi. They (congress) want an agency to publicise fake data. This is a factory, a machine of dishing out lies,” he said.
The Indian Express tried to contact Kumar for his comment but he could not be reached.
BJP president J P Nadda took a swipe at Gandhi on X by sharing a video of a woman who first claimed before the Congress leader and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav that the names of six of her family members were removed from the draft voters list in Bihar and then retracted. “I am still standing there… where my lie was caught, the truth was revealed and I made a joke of myself. I am still standing there,” Nadda posted on X.
VIDEO | BJP leader Gaurav Bhatia, addressing a press conference, says, “Rahul Gandhi is running a ‘shop of lies’. Whenever such issues go to court, the petitions are dismissed, whether in the Supreme Court or the Bombay High Court. Making baseless allegations against… pic.twitter.com/8PEvihs3Na
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 19, 2025
On August 17 (Sunday), Kumar posted on X that Ramtek and Devlali in Maharashtra had shown 36-38% decrease in number of voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
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Kumar deleted that post on Tuesday and wrote, “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.”
Bhatia claimed that the original post was intended to “divide people”. “CSDS did all its surveys based on caste among Hindus. But when it comes to Muslim voters, no survey on similar lines is done,” Bhatia said. “This amounts to criminal negligence.”
He said on February 3, Gandhi had claimed that 70 lakh voters’ names had increased in Maharashtra between Lok Sabha and Assembly elections; he changed the figure to 1 crore in July.
“The Supreme Court yesterday (Monday) dismissed a petition calling for cancellation of Maharashtra Assembly elections on grounds of bogus voting. The court found the petition baseless,” Bhatia said, adding that the same petitioner had earlier claimed that there had been irregularities in 95 constituencies of the state.
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Bhatia said the Lok Sabha LoP was maligning the EC while he was himself out on bail.
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