‘Rs 60 crore was spent by bodies, individuals and groups on 4.31 lakh Facebook ads’.
New Delhi: Poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), a political consulting group led by Kishor, has spent more on Facebook ads than the BJP has in the last 18 months, and most of it is related to West Bengal. I-PAC, currently assisting the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), spent close to Rs 5 crore on approximately 35 pages that are mostly related to West Bengal and in support of the TMC and Banerjee. Even region-wise, I-PAC has emerged among the top five spenders across Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.
These facts have emerged from an ad report put out by Facebook that has revealed that in the last 18 months, since February 2019 till August 2020, the BJP (including its allied organisations), the Indian National Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who are among the top 10 spenders on Facebook ads in India, have spent close to Rs 11 crore on approximately 19,000 ads.
These numbers do not include the money spent by leaders on their personal pages or by state organisations of various parties who run their Facebook pages separately.
With India having approximately 25 crore Facebook users, the US-based social media platform has emerged as a huge forum to impress and attract voters due to which political parties in India are not shying away from spending huge amounts on Facebook ads.
With Covid-19 limiting physical interactions and restricting people at home, the importance of Facebook has grown manifold in recent times.
The BJP, according to the Facebook ad report, shelled out Rs 4.60 crore on 2,676 ads, followed by Congress which spent Rs 1.83 crore on 3,702 ads, while AAP spent Rs 68 lakh on 836 ads in the given time period. Multiple BJP supporting pages like “My first vote for Modi”, “Bharat ke Mann ki Baat”, “Nation with Namo”, too, spent considerable money on Facebook ads and figure among the top 15 spenders on Facebook ads.
In all, around Rs 60 crore was spent by various organisations, individuals and groups on 4.31 lakh Facebook ads under the head, “social issues, elections and politics”. In the last 90 days, Facebook has got the maximum number of ads, region-wise, from Maharashtra (Rs 87.78 lakh), West Bengal (Rs 76.97 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (63.47 lakh), Bihar (Rs 58.26 lakh) and Rajasthan (Rs 51.48 lakh). Curiously, in all these regions, I-PAC is among the top five spenders. The report also points out how seriously political parties have started taking Facebook when it comes to using this platform for political campaigning.