S Y Quraishi, who was chief election commissioner at the time, said there indeed was an MoU in 2012 but any mention of any funds was \”completely false and malicious\” BJP seized upon Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), constituted by US President Donald Trump, announcing that it had cancelled many programmes costing hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. It cited $486 million to the ‘Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening’, which included $21 million for \”voter turnout\” in India. \”It is becoming increasingly evident that the Congress-led UPA systematically enabled the infiltration of India’s institutions by forces opposed to the nation’s interests,\” BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya said on X. He said EC had signed MoU with IFES, an organisation he claimed was linked to Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which was primarily funded by USAID. \”$21m for voter turnout? This definitely is external interference in India’s electoral process. Who gains from this? Not the ruling party for sure,\” he said.
