NEW DELHI: With Elon Musk-led DOGE’s (Department of Government Efficiency) disclosure that USAID contributed $21 million to EC allegedly for boosting voter turnout, BJP Monday demanded a probe into the whole affair.
“So, DOGE has discovered that USAID allocated $21 million for ‘voter turnout’ in India, a euphemism for paying voters to cast their votes to effect regime change. Veena Reddy was sent to India in 2021 (ominous?) as head of USAID’s Indian mission. Post Lok Sabha elections 2024 (presumably her voter turnout mission done), she returned to US. Pity because investigating agencies here could have asked her some questions about who this money was given to for applying it to voter turnout operations,” BJP MP Mahesh Jethmalani said on X.
This came a day after S Y Quraishi, who has served as chief election commissioner (CEC), confirmed that EC had signed an understanding with USAID. Importantly, however, the former CEC said the arrangement involved no funding by USAID, something which belies the disclosure made by DOGE but may strengthen Musk’s case about opaqueness of USAID’s funding and functioning.
Jethmalani stressed that in July 2021, USAID had named Reddy as its mission director in India, the first Indian-American to hold the post. “She (Reddy) worked in close tandem here with US ambassador Eric Garcetti in executing the agency’s objectives. Doubtless he will plead diplomatic immunity if asked about the voter turnout modus operandi. And of course, USAID’s foreign objectives were directed by its ex-secretary of state (Anthony Blinken at the time) who will shed no light on the matter.”
Earlier, economist Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of PM’s economic advisory council, called USAID the “biggest scam in human history”. Sanyal also demanded a probe. “I would love to find out who received the $21 million, the $29 million spent on ‘strengthening political landscape in Bangladesh’, and the $29 million spent to improve ‘fiscal federalism’ in Nepal,” he said on X.
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi played down Quraishi’s rejection of the report. The clearance was given by the then Congress-led UPA govt and so it is for its senior functionaries to come out with a clarification, he added. He said there was no ground left for Congress to defend itself.