New Delhi: For the third straight day, US President Donald Trump repeated his claim that $21 million was granted to India for “voter turnout”.
Interestingly, Trump’s latest salvo comes after a report in The Washington Post claimed that a $21 million USAID grant was allocated in 2022 for Bangladesh, and not India.
The contrasting claims gave the BJP and Congress fresh reasons to target each other.
“$21 million going to my friend Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India for voter turnout. We are giving $21 million for voter turnout in India. What about us? I want voter turnout too,” Trump said, adding that a “$29 million fund was granted to strengthen the political landscape of Bangladesh.”
Trump’s claim contradicts the media report in the US.
According to The Washington Post, there was no record of any programme, as stated by the US President.
In the report titled ‘How a false DOGE claim ignited a political firestorm in India’, it was mentioned that the USAID had a $21 million contract for Bangladesh, quoting officials of the organisation.
The report backs a similar article by The Indian Express, which claimed that India has received no funding from USAID for any poll-related project since 2008.
The Express article has been at the centre of a political feud between the BJP and the Congress.
The Congress, riding on the media reports in India and the US, dismissed BJP’s charge of alleged foreign interference in our electoral process.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera took a jibe at the saffron party, saying the “BJP and its blind supporters” will have to eat their words following the expose in The Washington Post, referring to BJP accusing Rahul Gandhi of seeking foreign help to try and defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“In this latest expose on the so-called US funding to increase voter turnout in India, The Washington Post discovers that no such programme existed and no such funding came in. For the BJP and its blind supporters, crow is part of their daily diet plan. Who else will eat crow following this comedy of errors?” Khera wrote on X.
The BJP, on the other hand, shared Trump’s admission video on X and took a swipe at the Opposition.
It all started with Elon Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government efficiency) claiming that it had cancelled a $21 million grant to India meant for boosting “voter turnout”. DOGE pointed out that the $21 million grant to India was part of a $486 million payment to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), a USAID-funded consortium of non-profits.
The Washington Post quoted three people familiar with US aid initiatives as saying that there was no programme which matched DOGE’s description in India.
“We were all shocked to see that claim from DOGE. We don’t know anything about elections in India because we have never been involved,” an official said.
Another official remarked that Musk & Co. may have confused the numbers from other programmes.
