Contrary to the claim made by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Donald Trump, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) did not provide funding of $21 million for “voter turnout” in India, the Ministry of External Affairs told Rajya Sabha Thursday, citing communications with the US embassy.
On February 21, The Indian Express reported that the $21-million aid for “voter turnout” did not come to India but went to Bangladesh in July 2022 for USAID’s Amar Vote Amar (My Vote is Mine) project.
On February 16, the DOGE announced it had “cancelled,” among a string of USAID funds awarded to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), a grant of “$21 million for voter turnout in India”.
Trump repeated this claim on multiple occasions, and the ruling BJP accused the Opposition Congress of using alleged external influence in India’s election process.
Until The Indian Express reported on February 21 how they all jumped the gun.
According to a written reply in Rajya Sabha Thursday, the MEA requested the US Embassy on February 28 to “urgently furnish details of expenditure incurred on all USAID-assisted/funded projects in India over the last ten years”.
According to the MEA, the US Embassy shared USAID’s India funding data for 2014-2024 on July 2, maintaining that “USAID/India did not receive or provide funding of $21 million for voter turnout in India from fiscal years 2014 to 2024, nor has it implemented any voter turnout-related activities in India.”
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At the centre of the dispute were two USAID grants on DOGE’s list that were channelled via the CEPPS, a group based in Washington, DC, which specialises in “complex democracy, rights and governance programming”.
CEPPS was meant to receive a total of $486 million from USAID. This corpus included, as per DOGE’s claim, $22 million for “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova; and $21 million for “voter turnout in India”.
The first was awarded to CEPPS in September 2016 to “promote” an “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova. With Federal Award Identification Number AID117LA1600001 (an ID specific to the grant).
The second grant of $21 million, records accessed by The Indian Express showed, was sanctioned – with Federal Award Identification Number 72038822LA00001 – in July 2022 for USAID’s Amar Vote Amar (My Vote is Mine) project in Bangladesh, not India.
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Of this, a sizable chunk was already disbursed, ostensibly for “political and civic engagement” among Bangladesh students in the run-up to the January 2024 elections and projects that put a question mark on the integrity of these elections – seven months before the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
In its reply in Rajya Sabha, the MEA also said that the US embassy subsequently communicated on July 29 that it plans to bring all USAID operations to a close by August 15, 2025.
This was reiterated on August 11 when the embassy wrote to the Department of Economic Affairs, conveying that all seven Partnership Agreements with the Government of India would also stand closed with effect from August 15.
