‘Baseless and malicious’: Ex-CEC clarifies after Elon Musk-led DOGE cancels ‘voter turnout’ funding | India Information

NEW DELHI: Former chief election commissioner (CEC) SY Quraishi dismissed claims {that a} US company funded efforts to boost voter turnout in India, calling the studies “baseless” and “malicious.” His response follows an announcement by the US division of presidency effectivity (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, which claimed to have cancelled $21 million in funding for voter participation initiatives in India.
Quraishi clarified that in his tenure as CEC in 2012, the Election Fee of India (ECI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Worldwide Basis for Electoral Methods (IFES). Nonetheless, he mentioned that this settlement didn’t contain any monetary commitments. “The report in a bit of media about an MoU by ECI in 2012, once I was CEC, for funding of sure million {dollars} by a US company for elevating voter turnout in India doesn’t have an iota of reality,” Quraishi wrote on X.
He additional defined that the MoU was much like agreements signed with a number of different worldwide election administration our bodies to facilitate coaching on the ECI’s Indian Institute of Electoral Democracy and Electoral Administration (IIIDEM). “There was no financing and even promise of finance concerned within the MoU, overlook X or Y quantity. The MoU the truth is made it clear in black and white that there could be no monetary and authorized obligation of any type on both facet,” he mentioned, including that this stipulation was explicitly talked about at two totally different locations within the doc to keep away from any ambiguity.
Quraishi reiterated that any claims of US funding for voter participation in India have been fully false. “Any point out of funds in reference to this MoU is totally false and malicious,” he wrote.

DOGE, which was established underneath the Trump administration to supervise and lower authorities spending, not too long ago introduced a listing of cancelled expenditures, together with $21 million for “voter turnout in India.” The division claimed that US taxpayer {dollars} had been allotted to numerous worldwide tasks, together with election-related actions in Moldova, Bangladesh, Nepal, and different areas, all of which have now been scrapped.

Reacting to DOGE’s announcement, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya alleged that such funding amounted to “exterior interference” in India’s electoral course of. “$21M for voter turnout? This positively is exterior interference in India’s electoral course of. Who features from this? Not the ruling get together for positive!” he wrote on X.