New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has questioned the $21 million aid to India by the Joe Biden administration under the category of increasing “voter turnout in India”, wondering if it was trying to get “someone else elected”.
His comments came days after the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by billionaire Elon Musk, disbanded the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and cancelled the grants it had pledged to countries, including India and Bangladesh.
At a Miami event Thursday, Trump doubled down on his campaign pitch of American taxpayer dollars being spent unnecessarily abroad. He said: “Why do we need to spend $21 million on voter turnout in India? I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected. We have got to tell the Indian government… This is a total breakthrough.”
On Sunday, DOGE put out a list of cancelled initiatives which showed the grant of $21 million or Rs 182 crore given to the USAID-funded non-profit Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS). This was part of a broader process by CEPPS to improve democratic processes around the world, and to support political transitions.
Washington’s cost-cutting agency DOGE has discontinued grants to Mozambique, Cambodia, Serbia, Nepal, Liberia, Mali, and democracies in Southern Africa, among others. $29 million was also slated for “strengthening the political landscape in Bangladesh”—a country which ousted its premier Sheikh Hasina last August.
Trump lauded DOGE’s initiatives while speaking in Miami, saying: “Over the past month, we have effectively eliminated the USAID, which was funding much of this lunacy.”
Earlier, on Wednesday, Trump had railed against this grant to India from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. He said: “Why are we giving $21 million to India? They got a lot more money. They are one of the highest taxing countries in the world in terms of us; we can hardly get in there because their tariffs are so high. I have a lot of respect for India and their Prime Minister, but giving $21 million for voter turnout? In India? What about voter turnout here?”
Meanwhile, the BJP has wasted no time in latching on to this subject, hinting that rival Congress was behind this machination.
BJP national spokesperson Amit Malviya said in a statement on 16 February: “$21M for voter turnout? This definitely is external interference in India’s electoral process. Who gains from this? Not the ruling party for sure!”
Former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar called the claimed grant a “smoking gun of interference and undermining of democracies”. He wrote on X, “Shocking that on one hand there is discussion on democratic values and on other hand there is brazen undermining of democratic nations.”
He added: “… Whose voters for whom? Who received this money…? It reinforces the belief that almost all these ‘protests’ had external funding/forces and puppet masters behind it. I hope we investigate the money trail in India fully and who did what with the ‘USAID’ money.”
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