By Mayank Chhaya-
For three consecutive days President Donald Trump has obsessed over a sum of $21 million that he claims was spent on voter turnout in India as part of the much-reviled United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It is confusing whether the money was indeed spent or canceled since the Department of Government Efficiency, the current joint favorite of Trump and the billionaire Elon Musk, said on X on February 15, ‘US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent” but “all which have been cancelled.” Some reports suggested that the money was disbursed but the DOGE put a freeze on it.
If it was “spent”, as suggested by the president, how was it cancelled? And if it was cancelled, how was it spent? The implication appears to be that it was frozen pending its actual disbursal.
It is also not clear for which election’s voter turnout it was meant for. If it was meant for the latest parliamentary elections, which were held in the middle of last year and which returned Prime Minster Narendra Modi to power for the third time, then it ought to have been spent already.
Trump added to that confusion when he said on Saturday, “USD 21 million going to my friend Prime Minister Modi in India for voter turnout. We are giving $21 million for voter turnout in India, what about us? I want voter turnout too, Governor…$29 million to strengthen political landscape in Bangladesh went to a firm that nobody ever heard of.”
Trump’s assertions began on Thursday when he said at a summit in Miami, “What do we need to spend $21 million for voter turnout in India for? Wow, $21 million. I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected.”
New Delhi has been taken aback by the U.S. president’s repeated claims. Foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a weekly news briefing, “We have seen information put out by the US administration regarding certain USAID activities and funding. These are obviously very deeply troubling. This has led to concerns about foreign interference in India’s internal affairs.”
Trump’s claims have unleashed a political slugfest in New Delhi with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the main opposition Congress Party generally and its most high-profile leader Rahul Gandhi in particular being involved with USAID’s efforts to “interfere” in India’s elections. The BJP’s fringe operatives have frequently accused Gandhi of doing the bidding of the Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros via the latter’s foundation.
The Congress Party has rubbished the charge with some of its functionaries pointing out that even India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar had met Samantha Power on July 26, 2022, when she visited as the USAID Administrator.
The timeline of the USAID money is all over the place since there are also reports BJP functionaries saying that India’s Election Commission, which is an independent statutory body excelling in regularly conducting the world’s largest elections for decades, had in 2012 signed an agreement with a group linked to George Soros’s foundation, which is primarily funded by USAID, to support a voter turnout campaign.
S Y Qureshi, who was the Chief Election Commissioner between 2010 and 2012, has acknowledged that the commission did sign an agreement, but it had “no financial or legal obligation on either side”.
