Digital Ad Expenditure Revealed
During the intense West Bengal assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) collectively allocated a substantial
₹31.57 crore towards advertising on Google and Meta. This financial outlay was meticulously tracked and reported as per the Election Commission of India's directives, which mandated transparency in social media campaign expenditures to foster a fair electoral environment. The period under review, from the election announcement to its conclusion, highlighted the critical role of digital platforms in reaching voters. Specifically, the BJP invested ₹17.44 crore, while the TMC’s spending amounted to ₹14.13 crore, showcasing the significant financial commitment to digital outreach during this key electoral contest.
Platform-Specific Spending Breakdown
Further analysis of the expenditure reveals a strategic division across digital giants. Both parties combined spent ₹23.08 crore on Google and ₹8.49 crore on Meta platforms. For the BJP, its West Bengal-specific pages on Google were the recipients of ₹12.53 crore, supporting 8,405 advertisements between March 15 and April 27. On Meta's family of platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, the official BJP West Bengal page accounted for ₹4.11 crore. An additional ₹34 lakh was distributed across numerous constituency-level BJP pages, each having spent between ₹50,000 and ₹90,000, pushing the party's total Meta expenditure to approximately ₹4.45 crore. In contrast, the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), a consultancy aligned with the TMC, spent ₹10.55 crore on Google for 1,181 ads during the same timeframe, underscoring the centralized nature of some digital campaigns.
TMC's Multi-Faceted Digital Push
The Trinamool Congress, through its associated entities, also demonstrated a robust digital advertising strategy across Meta's platforms. The official TMC party page alone saw an investment of ₹1.09 crore. Beyond the primary party page, several other digital assets contributed significantly to the TMC's Meta spend. These included Abhishek Banerjee's personal page, which garnered ₹66.9 lakh, the IPAC-operated 'Banglar Gorbo Mamata' page with ₹46.7 lakh, 'Trinamoole Nabo Jowar' at ₹35.6 lakh, and 'Abar Jitbe Bangla' with ₹13.3 lakh. This comprehensive approach extended to over a dozen surrogate pages, collectively bringing the TMC's total expenditure on Meta to approximately ₹4.04 crore. When consolidating spending across both Google and Meta, the BJP's total digital ad spend was around ₹16.98 crore (₹12.53 crore on Google and ₹4.45 crore on Meta), while the TMC and IPAC together spent approximately ₹14.59 crore (₹10.55 crore on Google and ₹4.04 crore on Meta), confirming the overall ₹31.57 crore figure.
