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While Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Wednesday and declared India as an elite power in outer space, something opaque seemed to brewing with his party in cyberspace.
On 24 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi retweeted a tweet by “NaMo Merchandise”, endorsing the “attractive merchandise” and asking his followers, “have you ordered yours?”
Two days later, on 26 March, one of the largest political advertisers on Facebook in India, a pro-BJP page called “My First Vote for Modi”, ran advertisements offering freebies from the same NaMo Merchandise in exchange for a pledge to vote for Modi.
Now, Congress leader Divya Spandana has written to Election Commission claiming that this process “amounts to bribery” and has demanded “the page and the network of websites that support it be taken down immediately.”
Interestingly, the “My First Vote for Modi” page’s official address on Facebook is the same address as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national headquarters - 6A, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, Near ITO, New Delhi, India 110002.
In the last month (February-23 March), “My First Vote for Modi” spent a total of Rs 61.72 lakh, on 5,984 advertisements. The freebies on offer include t-shirts, badges, backpacks, phone covers and caps.
In analysing paid political ads on Facebook, two other prominent pages feature alongside ‘My First Vote for Modi’ – ‘Nation With NaMo’ and ‘Bharat ke Mann ki Baat’.
All the three pages, apart from being pro-BJP pages, have another thing in common. They all have the same address, which is the BJP’s official headquarters at ITO in New Delhi.
However, among the three pages, only ‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’ as an entity has officially been launched by BJP President Amit Shah and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on 3 February, as the party’s outreach campaign ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections.
In the last one month up to 23 March, the three pages spent over Rs 4 crore on nearly 12,000 political advertisements on Facebook.
In the past week alone, the three together have spent Rs 62.92 lakh on 2,735 advertisements on Facebook.
On the question of Facebook’s ads library, the BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya told The Quint that they “welcome all measures that usher in higher transparency”. However, when asked about the addresses of the pages matching that of the BJP HQ, he offered no comment.
On 10 March, when the Election Commission of India announced the poll dates, it also elaborated upon a number of measures to monitor political activity online.
These rules were accepted by all the major social media platforms including Facebook and are present in the voluntary “Code of Ethics” – a set of 8 commitments – that the major platforms collectively submitted to the Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora.
However, the EC or the ‘Code of Ethics’ say nothing about paid political advertisements by non-candidates or non-party pages or individuals.
Moreover, Facebook has kept vital disclosures voluntary in its ads library. Therefore, advertisements can run without information on the sponsor of the advertisement, the phone number or address of the sponsor.
“Voluntary declaration means there no verification by Facebook. I am free to put in any address,” said Pratik Sinha, founder of AltNews.
A number of questions arise regarding the money spent, the sponsors of the advertisements and on the EC and Facebook’s move to ensure full transparency in expenditure control.
Why do ‘My First Vote for Modi’ and ‘Nation with NaMo’ pages on Facebook show BJP’s headquarters as its address?
Since there is no name or identity attached to these pages, who is paying for the advertisements?
If the pages are indeed linked to the BJP, then do Modi’s endorsements of NaMo merchandise and the lure of merchandise in exchange for votes amount to a veiled bribe?
Has the Election Commission taken note of these practices?
“The gap here is the Opposition. The Opposition is supposed to raise these questions and ask for an enquiry. The Election Commission can launch an enquiry if an Opposition party raises this issue,” said Pratik Sinha.
The Quint has sent a list of questions to the Election Commission. This story will be updated once a response is received.
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