Patna : Before the Bihar assembly election results came out on Tuesday, it has been revealed that the Congress party has spent more than the others in reaching voters through the popular social media platform Facebook in the last one month. According to the Facebook Ad Library data, the Indian National Congress (INC) Bihar page has spent Rs 61.5 lakh on 1,268 advertisements on Facebook from October 8 to November 6.
In comparison, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) spending on Facebook advertisements on the Bihar page was less than half that of the Congress during the same period. The BJP Bihar page spent Rs 26.9 lakh, while the Janata Dal (United) spent Rs 24.1 lakh during this period.
Thus in the context of advertising spending on Facebook in the last one month, the combined spending of the ruling Janata Dal (United) -Bharatiya Janata Party (JDU-BJP) alliance does not match the Bihar Congress page alone. The Facebook page of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) President Chirag Paswan was also one of the highest spenders in the last 30 days. According to Facebook, the page spent Rs 14.5 lakh in the last 30 days.
Data shows that the Bihar Congress page accelerated spending on Facebook ads from 1 to 7 November. During this period, Congress spent Rs 27.8 lakh compared to only Rs 4.8 lakh spent by the Bihar unit of the BJP on the page. Various Facebook pages in support of one political party or another or their leaders also became active till the Bihar Assembly elections. Bihar has 243 assembly seats. Some exit polls on Saturday predicted a landslide victory for the grand alliance, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and the Left parties.