Special Articles

CEPPS And USAID: The $21M Plan Of Deep State To Interfere In Indian Elections

February 17, 2025
The Commune

The newly formed DOGE cancelled $21M funding for NGO CEPPS for a program ‘voter turnout in India’. The CEPPS website is defunct now.

Was it the first attempt at electoral interference in India by USAID? The answer is – NO.

The USAID program “Elections and Political Processes” was to “promote legitimate contestation for ideas and political power through democratic political processes that reflect the will of the people”. Gimmicks! The real agenda is influencing the elections. In 2013, USAID pledged half a million dollars for India under the same category.

  • Funding Agency – Dept of State
  • Managing agency – USAID
  • Implementing Partner – Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS).

The funds were disbursed monthly, in and around, the general election in India, 2014. Post-election the funding faded.


Though CEPPS continued to fund different projects in India under different heads. I’ve verified these in the Annual Finance Reports of CEPPS for at least 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The amount every year is around $320,000.

This CEPPS is part of the larger umbrella of IFES (International Foundation of Electoral System) which is funded/partnered with USAID, US St Deptartment, Open Society (Soros’), etc.

You may find the ECI (Election Commission of India) logo as well here. The possible reason is here:

In 2012 ECI signed an MoU with IFES for joint initiatives for exchanging information, experiences, and research. Basically, there is a lot of data. This data is a gold mine. At that time Dr SY Quraishi was chief election commissioner.

If you don’t know SY Qureshi, there is a teaser – endorsing a post -“wishing” Coronavirus infection to PM Modi. Anyway!

However, just a short while ago, former CEC, Quraishi said that the MoU was signed but no funds were taken. Leaving it as it is.

Another shocker, I found a whitepaper published by IFES on Dalits’ role in the election in India. The white paper’s keywords had an uncanny resemblance to Rahul Gandhi’s rhetorics of ‘jiski jitni aabadi’ (representation), participation, influence in parliament, etc.

It is not rocket science to understand that these agencies are not a Messiah who wanted to establish democracy in India at American taxpayers’ cost. A well-established ecosystem of deep state to influence and directly interfere in India’s election. There is no question as to who colludes with them from India.

USAID paid $21 million to influence Indian elections by targeting voter turnout, says Mike Benz.

The award was piped through the NGO named “Consortium for Elections & Political Process Strengthening”. When the grants were checked, it was found that the US has piped billions of taxpayer funds to CEPPS over the last 15 years.

The CEPPS operates through 3 fronts, including the National Democracy Institute (NDI), which in turn supports the Asian Network for Free Elections. Note the Indian map without J&K and Ladakh they published in March 2024.

Curiously, the CEPPS handle on X has been deactivated as has its webpage. But on going to its proxy – the Advancing Electoral Democracy in Asia website, we find that Lokniti CSDS are its local partners. Notice who its Bangladesh partner is? – Odhikar.org which is claiming that the Sheikh Hasina government is responsible for the deaths of people during the “revolution” last year!

Vasu Mohan, who has been serving IFES for 21 years in various capacities, deleted/deactivated his X profile. What does it indicate?

This article is based on an X thread by The Hawk Eye.

Subscribe to our channels on Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.