Shadowy Indian election ‘consultants’ add US midterms to global footprint

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Indian political consultants and online content workers have expanded their shadow campaign work beyond India, with recent activity linked to the US midterm cycle as well as earlier elections in Africa and South America. The article says researchers identified Indian accounts and bots sharing material favorable to US congressional candidate Haley Stevens in Michigan, while similar tactics have previously been used in Kenya, where such posts supported William Ruto’s 2022 presidential bid.

According to consultants and researchers quoted by Al Jazeera, the work often relies on anonymous or “shadow” accounts on platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. These pages are used to circulate politically useful content that would not appear on official campaign channels, including edited clips, posters and misleading narratives. The article says the system is built around hiding the origin of posts, using virtual private networks, rebranding pages and deleting traces of communication.

The report says Indian consultancies now market themselves as having experience in a large, competitive democracy and use that reputation to attract foreign clients. The industry’s reach, as described in the piece, has also included contacts in countries such as Suriname, Australia, Germany, Nepal and Sri Lanka, though not every deal is said to have succeeded.

The story matters because it highlights how election influence operations are increasingly transnational and harder to trace, raising concerns about social media manipulation, disclosure rules and the ethics of paid political persuasion. Al Jazeera frames this as part of a broader shift from traditional campaign consulting to covert online influence work.