‘Paltu Aadmi Party’ overtakes BJP Delhi in amount spent on Facebook ads

Hyderabad: A Facebook page that calls itself ‘Paltu Aadmi Party’ has beaten political bigwigs like BJP in Delhi, in the amount spent on Facebook ads, from September 28 to December 26, 2019. The page, which calls itself a ‘satire/parody’ account, spent a whopping Rs 4.8 lakh within the last 90 days, as per the Facebook Ad Report.

The Facebook page is eerily similar to several right-wing troll pages and mainly intents to vilify Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Most of their posts involve photos of Delhi CM with ridiculing captions. Some of their posts also pick at student protestors in Delhi, who had expressed their dissent against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and resisted the Delhi police crackdown.

The ‘satire’ page is third only to Mike Bloomberg and Gem Mines, whose expenditure on Facebook ads for the last 90 days amount to Rs 9.7 lakh and Rs 6.1 lakh respectively.

This year, the ‘Paltu Aadmi Party’ Facebook page had spent Rs 7.5 lakh, from February to December 2019, for advertising on the US-based social media conglomerate.

BJP still tops in Facebook ad expenditure

As the year ends, BJP spent a whopping Rs 4.3 crore on advertisements on Facebook in 2019. The Indian National Congress closely follows the Bharatiya Janata Party in terms of ad expenditure. INC had spent Rs 1.8 crores on Facebook ads, according to the Facebook Ad Report.

Out of the top ten Facebook accounts that spent on advertisements, six were affiliated either to BJP or Narendra Modi. These pages include ‘My First Vote For Modi’, ‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’ and ‘Nation With Namo’. Interestingly, two of these pages — ‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’ and ‘Nation With Namo’ — ran their ads without disclaimers. Although Facebook says that all “ads about social issues, elections or politics need to have a disclaimer”, such right-wing affiliated pages are running their ads without one.