In a fiery televised exchange, prominent psephologist Sanjay Kumar, Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), admitted that his organization has accepted foreign funding from Western agencies, including the controversial Ford Foundation. The admission came under intense questioning from Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, who was investigating how erroneous data from Kumar was used by the Congress party to allege systematic “vote theft” and discredit the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The broadcast revelation directly ties CSDS to a larger, recently exposed network of US-government-funded NGOs, specifically the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), which had a $21 million program to influence “voter turnout” in India before it was abruptly cancelled and scrubbed from the internet.
“Yes, We Have Taken Foreign Funding”: The On-Air Admission
The confrontation began with Goswami challenging Kumar on his erroneous data analysis, which showed a discrepancy between votes cast and voter turnout in certain constituencies, a claim the ECI had already dismissed as “absurd” and based on a “miscalculation.” Kumar apologized, calling it a “big mistake” and not part of any conspiracy.
The interview then took a sharp turn when Goswami questioned the source of Kumar’s institutional funding.
Arnab Goswami: “Has the Ford Foundation given you money?”
Sanjay Kumar: “Long back… Yes, long back, we have.”
Arnab Goswami: “So you do receive foreign funding?”
Sanjay Kumar: “If there is a project which we are doing and if there is a funding for that project, we do get some funding for the project which we do.”
Goswami pressed further, listing other potential donors like the Hewlett Foundation, Dutch agencies, the Gates Foundation, and the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada. While Kumar could not recall all, he confirmed receiving project-based grants from foreign entities.
📍Arnab Goswami takes CSDS’s Sanjay Kumar to the cleaners 🔥 pic.twitter.com/FG9XJFpcfj
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) August 19, 2025
Ford Foundation Funded CSDS
As claimed by Kumar on television, the CSDS website confirms the fact that they have received funding in the form of grants from Ford Foundation
The website reads, “The Centre was constituted as a society, funded largely by the Indian Council of Social Science Research. It received a major endowment from the Ford Foundation in 2000, and the Canadian agency IDRC (International Development Research Centre) identified CSDS as one of 15 select institutions world-wide that received support through the Think Tank Initiative, in two successive rounds of funding, 2009-2019.”
The Ford Foundation website states that Centre for the Study of Developing Societies has received 4 grants since 2006
Now let’s take a look at another funding received by CSDS that was reported earlier.
The CSDS-CEPPS-USAID Nexus: A Pattern of Foreign Influence
This on-air admission gives concrete, namesake evidence to a recent investigative report that exposed a deep-state plan to interfere in Indian elections. Our report during the USAID funding controversy details how:
A $21 million USAID program, managed by CEPPS and funded by the U.S. Department of State, was created to influence “voter turnout” in India. The program was cancelled and its online presence scrubbed after being exposed.
USAID paid $21 million to influence Indian elections by targeting voter turnout, says Mike Benz.
The award was piped thru the NGO named "Consortium for Elections & Political Process Strengthening".
I checked the grants. The US has piped billions of taxpayer funds to CEPPS… https://t.co/OFsMahaYp7 pic.twitter.com/KOoZSZlVgk
— Tapesh Yadav (@tapeshyadav_usa) February 15, 2025
CEPPS is a consortium comprising major American political NGOs and is a long-time vehicle for channeling U.S. taxpayer money to influence elections globally. It has historically partnered with organizations in India.
CSDS’s Lokniti programme is explicitly named as a “local partner” of CEPPS’s “Advancing Electoral Democracy in Asia” initiative. The same initiative partners with organizations like Bangladesh’s Odhikar.org, which has accused the Sheikh Hasina government of killings.
The investigation also revealed a 2012 MoU between the Election Commission of India (under then-CEC S.Y. Quraishi) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), a core member of CEPPS.
This MoU allowed for the exchange of data and research; a relationship critics say could provide foreign actors with a “gold mine” of sensitive Indian voter data.
Political Fallout: Erroneous Data and a Coordinated Narrative
The timing of Kumar’s data error is seen by many as suspicious. His incorrect figures were immediately seized upon by Congress leaders to build a narrative of a compromised election and “vote chori” (vote theft), creating significant political tension.
While Kumar has apologized and deleted the tweet, he agreed that the Congress party, which amplified his faulty data, should also issue an apology. He stated, “I think Congress party should have also said that this data… which they have used is wrong because they have used my data.”
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