As the NDA secures three seats more than the simple majority in Bihar, despite JD(U)’s fifteen years of massive anti-incumbency and a general sense of fatigue against Nitish Kumar, the ad spending of various political parties on Facebook, and consequentially the impact of the same on the ground has a very interesting story to tell. While the BJP has emerged as the second-largest party in Bihar after RJD, behind only one seat, it was nowhere close to major political parties fighting the election when it came to spending on Facebook ads. Congress, which even by its own track-record has put up an embarrassing performance, spent the highest on Facebook.
According to Live Hindustan, the Bhartiya Janata Party did not feature in even the top-five spenders during peak election season. In the past three months, the saffron party has spent only 31.44 lakh on 1214 ads on Facebook targeted for Bihar’s audience. This, in contrast to the party’s spending in West Bengal, where it has already spent over 33 lakh rupees for 134 ads. While the BJP has not been spending as flamboyantly as its rivals to secure a good performance in Bihar, it is nevertheless the top search word on Facebook, which shows how much people are organically searching for the party on the platform. This would partly explain the BJP spending less compared to others on Facebook.
The Congress and JD(U) have, for the polls in Bihar, spent over 64.51 lakh and 40.22 lakh respectively on ads. Interestingly, while the Congress spent Rs 61.5 lakh on 1,268 ads during October 8-November 6, the BJP’s and JDU’s figure of spending for the same period stood at 26.9 lakh and 24.1 lakh respectively. Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Chirag Paswan’s Facebook page was also one of the top spenders in the last 30 days. This page spent Rs 14.5 lakh in the past month, according to Facebook.
The results which have been thrown up by the people of Bihar, however, show that spending mindlessly on Facebook for parties like Congress has borne close to no results. The final tally which has emerged from the state is as follows:
NDA – 125 (BJP 74, JD(U) 43, VIP 4, HAM 4)
MGB – 110 (RJD 75, Congress 19, Left 16)
AIMIM – 5, LJP – 1, Independents – 1.
Compare these figures with the ad spend of various parties, and it becomes clear that a political front which is not liked by people on the ground cannot be made to win elections inorganically by feeding them ads on social media platforms.
