{"id":4968,"date":"2019-03-28T16:18:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T10:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/34.22.110.190\/english\/?p=4968"},"modified":"2019-03-28T16:18:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T10:48:05","slug":"pro-bjp-fb-pages-lure-voters-with-freebies-to-vote-for-bjp-spent-rs-53-lakh-in-a-week-on-political-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/pro-bjp-fb-pages-lure-voters-with-freebies-to-vote-for-bjp-spent-rs-53-lakh-in-a-week-on-political-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-BJP FB pages lure voters with freebies to vote for BJP, spent Rs 53 lakh in a week on political ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to\u00a0Facebook\u2019s weekly ad library report<\/a>, a pro-BJP Facebook page\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019\u00a0<\/em>has incurred the maximum expenditure on political ads \u2013 Rs 46.6 lakh in one week starting March 17 to March 23.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The total expenditure in the said time period by all pages sponsoring ads related to politics or issues of national importance was a little over Rs 1.5 crore. Out this, the\u00a0top 20 pages alone spent more than Rs 1.1 crore<\/strong>. Coming in second to\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019<\/em>\u00a0was pro-YSR Congress ads by the political advocacy group\u00a0\u2018Indian Political Action Committee\u2019<\/em>\u00a0(Rs 17.52 lakh), followed by the page dedicated to BJP\u2019s election campaign\u00a0\u2018Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat\u2019\u00a0<\/em>(Rs 9.68 lakh).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0table below shows the expenditure incurred by the highest-spending 20 pages<\/strong>\u00a0between March 17 to 23 and compares the same with the previous week\u2019s spending. Between March 10 to 16,\u00a0\u2018Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat\u2019\u00a0<\/em>was the top spender with an expenditure of over Rs 27 lakh. This week, the page\u2019s spending was brought down by Rs 17 lakh and the expenditure of\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019\u00a0<\/em>increased by over Rs 31 lakh.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the expenditure of another pro-BJP Facebook page\u00a0\u2018Nation with NaMo\u2019\u00a0<\/em>which stood in the second place last week (Rs Rs 17.7 lakh), was reduced by over Rs 11 lakh.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In total, pro-BJP pages incurred an expenditure of Rs 67 lakh, followed by pro-YSR Congress ads (Rs 24 lakh), pro-BJD ads (Rs 10.5 lakh) and pro-Congress ads (Rs 8 lakh).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pro-BJP pages lure social media users with freebies to vote for the party<\/h2>\n

Facebook\u2019s ad library data allows users to examine the nature of political ads sponsored by a certain page. Alt News discovered that\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019<\/em>, developed three months prior to the coming elections, is luring voters with \u201cattractive goodies\u201d against a pledge to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The range of goodies offered by the page is badges, bags, T-shirts, phone covers, caps, etc.\u00a0\u201cPledge your first vote for PM Modi for the better India and win exciting goodies,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>read the ads.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Incidentally, all of these products are available for sale on the\u00a0official website<\/a>\u00a0of PM Modi as part of \u2018NaMo merchandise.\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In fact, the Prime Minister himself advertised some of the same products from his Twitter handle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another pro-BJP page that also offers \u2018goodies\u2019 to voters against a pledge to vote for PM Modi is\u00a0\u2018Nation with NaMo\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018Nation with NaMo<\/em>\u2018\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019\u00a0<\/em>are a part and parcel of the same brand, as evident from the collage above. The ad carries the logo of\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Violation of election laws?<\/h2>\n

Our\u00a0earlier report<\/a>\u00a0brought to light the fact that the address mentioned by both\u00a0\u2018Nation with NaMo\u2019\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0\u2018My First Vote For Modi\u2019\u00a0<\/em>as part of advertiser details, matched the address of BJP Delhi headquarters.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The BJP, however, is yet to declare direct links with these pages, which begs the question of who funds them when the combined investment by both the pages since February 2019 stands at nearly Rs 1.8 crore.<\/p>\n

But a matter of bigger concern is the veiled bribing of voters. Both the pages offer \u2018attractive prizes\u2019 and \u2018goodies\u2019 in the form of NaMo merchandise to anyone pledging to vote for PM Modi.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Alt News, former Chief of Election Commission TS Krishnamurthy said,\u00a0\u201cUnder the Representation of the People Act, you are not supposed to influence voters with any offers. It must be examined under the Act whether the voters are being influenced by undue influencers.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A plethora of unresolved questions can only be answered via an enquiry by the Election Commission of India.<\/p>\n

1. Is the BJP or people associated with the party pumping money into proxy Facebook pages that influence voters by luring them with freebies?<\/p>\n

2. Is the Election Commission aware of the practice?<\/p>\n

3. Has the EC looked into the source of investment of these pages and whether the same is a part of BJP\u2019s declared election expenditure?<\/p>\n

[This report was first published by\u00a0Alt News<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Violation of election laws? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":4969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editors-choice","8":"category-nation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4968"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=4968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}