In the run-up to the Assembly elections, Maharashtra’s ruling Mahayuti alliance has spent nearly seven times more than the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition on political advertisement through shadow accounts on social media, according to a recent report published by civil society bodies.

The Mahayuti alliance comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena group led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party faction headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. The Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Sharad Pawar’s faction of the NCP and the Congress.

Polling for the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly will take place in a single phase on November 20. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Jharkhand elections.

The report, titled “Maharashtra’s Shadow Politics: How Meta Permits, Profits From, and Promotes Shadow Political Advertisements” was jointly published by Tech Justice Law Project, Indian American Muslim Council, India Civil Watch International, Hindus for Human Rights and Dalit Solidarity Forum.

It showed that the Mahayuti alliance spent Rs 3.32 crore for advertising through shadow accounts, whereas the Maha Vikas Aghadi spent Rs Rs 50.47 lakh between August 5 and November 2.

The report pointed out that all shadow political ads, including ads on social media, are required to be pre-certified by the Election Commission during the polling period.

For any election-related campaign activities being undertaken by persons other than political parties and candidates, “prior special authority from the candidate concerned for incurring the expense shall be obtained in writing”, it stated. This authorisation needs to be submitted to the district election officer within 48 hours.

“Shadow accounts that run political advertising on behalf of a party or political candidate on social media, are thus disallowed by Indian law,” said the report. “This expenditure is undisclosed to the ECI and gives the parties cover to push out content that is hate speech and misinformation. It is unlikely that these ads receive any kind of pre-certification.”

Despite this, the report claimed, the Mahayuti alliance “runs at least fifty-six pages, as compared to four pages” run by the Maha Vikas Aghadi. It said that while the ruling coalition has put out close to 33,000 ads, pages associated with the Opposition alliance had just less than 1,000 ads between August 5 and November 2.

In the Mahayuti camp, the BJP spent Rs 2.61 crore, the Shinde Sena spent Rs 56.92 lakh and the Nationalist Congress Party put out ads worth Rs 35.86 lakh.

“The BJP runs multiple shadow accounts each with a different theme,” said the report. “The content pushed through BJP’s shadow pages is unlike any other – overtly Islamophobic, undeniable attack ads, fear-mongering and full of hate speech. Yet despite repeated evidence of these ads violating Meta’s own policies, not only does Meta not take them down but promotes them more than official ad pages.”

Narratives of advertising

The civil society bodies stated that the shadow accounts of the BJP push hateful and communally divisive content.

“The official BJP page puts out ads primarily on development and agriculture, with a close similarity to the issues taken up by official Government of Maharashtra pages,” said the report. “However, the network of shadow BJP accounts pushes out narratives predominantly around the caste quota, using it to attack the opposition as not upholding the rights of Marathas.”

It claimed that in contrast, the shadow pages run by the Maha Vikas Aghadi had no hate speech or communal content.

The shadow pages get ten times the number of impressions as the official BJP page, said the report.

“This yet again reinforces the fact that shadow accounts are used to circulate politically sensitive content without being traceable to political parties,” it added.

Also read: Facebook, Instagram failed to curb shadow ads in Jharkhand targeting CM Soren and others: new report