Is Facebook the Secret Weapon in India’s Election: In democratic countries, governments are formed and broken only by the public’s vote. Campaigning is an important part of the entire election. Till two decades ago, TV and newspapers were the biggest medium of publicity.While newspapers reach the public by being printed once in 24 hours, television shows news for 24 hours. But now information is reaching people within seconds and the biggest medium for this is social media. Since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, social media has now become the real field of elections in India. Platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, X (earlier Twitter), Instagram, YouTube and Google are playing an important role in changing the results of elections.In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP under the leadership ofÂ
Narendra Modi had made social media the biggest weapon. The Congress which was in power at that time could not understand its power and the same was the condition of other opposition parties. But by the time of 2019Â
Loksabha Elections other parties including Congress also became experts in this game. After the year 2015, Rahul Gandhi’s followers also increased in large numbers on social media. As the Internet reached people in India, political parties also started increasing their reach on social media platforms.
Now there will hardly be any party which is not on social media. Big political parties like BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and Samajwadi Party have prepared their ‘cyber armies’. These teams are engaged in spreading some agenda or propaganda 24 hours a day. Any information is reaching crores of people within seconds. Youth are more active on social media and social media is the easiest medium to woo them.Â
According to a survey conducted in 2019, before 2014, only one in ten voters was using Facebook.
But by the year 2017, it increased by 20 percent i.e. the number doubled. After this, during the 2019 elections, an increase of 32 percent was recorded.Â
Similar figures were also found for WhatsApp and an increase of 22 percent was recorded in 2017 and 34 percent by 2019.
Like Facebook and WhatsApp, YouTube users also increased by the same percentage during this period. In the year 2019, 31 percent voters were using it.
Whereas the number of people using Instagram was 15 percent. Talking about One in every eight voters was active on this social media.
who is spending how much money where
In the last 5 years i.e. between 2019 and 2023, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has spent Rs 33 crore for campaigning on Facebook. However, this is only 10 percent of the total money spent on Facebook by all the advertisors.
During this period, Congress has spent Rs 10.58 crore, Trinamool Congress Rs 8.04 crore and DMK Rs 4.31 crore.
This entire data is based on a research conducted by Business Line. This is the data of those pages on Facebook which are being run in the name of parties. This does not include data from the personal pages of the leaders.
According to worldpopulationreview.com , India is the country with the largest number of Facebook users in the world. At present this number is 31.5 crores. Now from this figure we can understand how big a medium Facebook is for publicity and why political parties are making money on Facebook.
If all the advertisers are included, Rs 360 crore has been spent on advertising on Facebook in five years. However, the special thing is that Google Ads is a cheaper medium than Facebook. But political parties spend more money on Facebook because through it they can connect with all sections of the population.
According to Business Line, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) has taken the responsibility of digital campaign of many political parties. Which includes AITC and YSR Congress. Apart from this, I-PAC has also worked for DMK in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in 2021 and Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Assembly elections in 2020.
Who spent how much on the official page
According to The Hindu Business Line, Rs 10.27 crore has been spent on publicity on BJP’s official page in the last five years. After this Rs 7.2 crores have been spent on the Coop app.Rs 5.86 crore has been spent on TMC’s page ‘Banglar Gorbo Mamta’.
Among the 15 pages related to political parties on Facebook on which the most money was spent, 6 pages belong to BJP and 2 pages belong to Congress. Apart from this, Rs 3.19 crore has been spent in the last 5 years on ‘Ek Dhokho Kejriwal Ne’, a page campaigning against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
Earlier the name of this page was ‘Paltu Express’. Apart from this, there is a page named ‘Olta Chashma’ in which propaganda is carried out against leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal who are part of the opposition alliance. Rs 1.93 crore has been spent on this in the last five years.
