BJP’s social media spending was far higher than Congress’s | Data Premium

Explore our Data Store | Get the latest data and insights on Elections in IndiaLokniti-CSDS investigated expenditure on online ad campaigns by BJP & Congress in 3 states. Meta Ad Library archives used to find BJP spent more than Congress in 90 days before elections.

Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) investigated the expenditure on online advertisement campaigns by the BJP and the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. We found in the three studies that significant amounts were allocated for ads on Facebook and Instagram. For the purposes of the study, we used Meta Ad library archives. Meta Ad Library is an open-source archive of ads across Meta’s products. It contains information on spend, reach, and funding activities. The ads about social issues, elections and politics are visible, whether active or inactive and are stored in the Ad library for seven years.

Table 1 | Amount of money spent by political parties on online ad campaigns in the 90 days preceding the State elections

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Madhya Pradesh

This study takes into account the ads posted by @INCMadhyaPradesh and @BJPMadhyaPradesh. In the 90 days preceding the elections, the BJP’s expenditure was more than that of the Congress (Table 1). The BJP spent about Rs. 94 lakh and the Congress spent about Rs. 72 lakh. However, this trend reversed if only the last 30 days before the elections were considered as the Congress spent nearly double the amount spent by the BJP.

Table 2A | The table is the list of the top 10 spenders on Facebook, according to the Meta Ad archives for Madhya Pradesh.

For the purposes of our study, we have only taken into account the @BJPMadhyaPradesh and @INCMadhyaPradesh accounts. However, there are multiple other non-party accounts posting political ads. The top 10 accounts have spent a significant total amount of Rs. 1.1 crore.