Political parties have spent over ₹53 crore on digital platforms such as Google and Facebook between February and May, with the BJP accounting for a lion’s share of the spending.

According to Facebook’s Ad Library Report, there were 1.21-lakh political ads, with a total spending of more than ₹26.5 crore between February and May 15 this year.

Similarly, ad spend on Google, YouTube and partner properties since February 19 stood at ₹27.36 crore, with 14,837 ads.

The BJP spent ₹4.23 crore on over 2,500 ads on Facebook. Supporting pages such as ‘My First Vote for Modi’, ‘ Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat ’ and ‘Nation with NaMo’, too, saw over ₹4 crore being spent on ads on the social-networking platform that has well over 200 million users in India. On Google’s platforms, the party has spent more than ₹17 crore.

The Indian National Congress spent ₹1.46 crore on Facebook for 3,686 ads. It shelled out another ₹2.71 crore on Google’s platforms with 425 ads.

According to Facebook data, All-India Trinamool Congress spent ₹29.28 lakh.

The Aam Aadmi Party shelled out ₹13.62 lakh for 176 ads on the Facebook page. Interestingly, Google’s political ad dashboard showed that Auburn Digital Solutions was running AAP’s campaigns, and had spent ₹2.18 crore from February 19 onwards.

Earlier this year, digital platforms such as Google and Facebook had said that they would offer details of political advertisements on their platform to bring transparency ahead of elections in the country. They have also announced a slew of measures over the past few months to strengthen efforts around election integrity.

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