Vignesh Rajahmani is a postdoctoral research fellow of Indian and Indonesian politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, where he studies campaign finance cultures and practices in India and Indonesia. 

He is also a postdoctoral affiliate at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his PhD in Political Science and Public Policy from the King’s India Institute in 2023 and is now a Research Affiliate of the institute. 

Vignesh's research spans multiple disciplines, including political science, public policy, sociology, and business studies. He has over five years of professional experience in public policy, legislative research, and political consulting. His research interests include public policy, politics of mobilisation, democratic development, the interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy, and political communication in the age of social media.

Vignesh has worked for India’s principal national opposition party, the Indian National Congress, for multiple provincial elections between 2015 and 2018. In the 2019 general elections, he worked on the party’s election manifesto and the largest universal income support scheme which is now being implemented at the provincial level in a few states. Subsequently, he crafted election strategy and state development plans including operational income support schemes for two regional parties, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Trinamool Congress, for elections in three states in 2021 (Tamil Nadu and West Bengal) and 2022 (Goa).

Vignesh is one of the group leads of the 'Social Media Networks and (Dis)information' research group at King's. He is also the coordinator of 'Confronting Caste', a seminar and podcast series from the King’s India Institute, and a member of the 'Cities, Climate, and Capital in the Greater Indian Ocean World' research group.