Elections | Digital spends on advertisements lack transparency

Since 2014, digital media platforms have become a ubiquitous part of Indian election campaigns. The use of social media for election campaigning intensified in the 2024 general elections with the rampant use of generative AI for campaign messaging.

Today, a substantial amount of money is spent by parties on online political advertising. The Internet has also become a breeding ground for widespread misinformation, disinformation, and deepfakes. This can be seen in the ongoing high stakes Delhi Assembly polls.

On January 16, the Election Commission of India (ECI) issued an advisory, its latest related to digital campaigning, for labelling synthetic/AI generated content used by political parties. While there are many issues plaguing online political campaigning, a key challenge is of tracking expenditure incurred on political advertisements by contestants (political parties and candidates) and non-contestants (third party/supporter accounts).

Advertisements galore

Between January 7 (the day the polls were announced) and January 28, Rs 76.2 million was spent on 6,096 political advertisements across Google platforms (see table below) for the ongoing Delhi polls. From December 28 to January 26, the Meta pages of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (Rs 27.3 million on 836 advertisements), followed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) (Rs 8.3 million on 499 advertisements) and the Delhi unit of the Congress (Rs 2.852 million on 60 advertisements) were among the top five spenders. These are only the expenses incurred by the official party pages.

For the 2024 general elections, the Congress declared spending Rs 476.9 million in its election expenditure statement available on the ECI's website on virtual campaigning across platforms, while six regional political parties — the YSR Congress, the Biju Janata Dal, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Janata Dal (Untied), and the Janata Dal (Secular) — together spent Rs 1,669 million. Between March 16 (the day the Lok Sabha polls were announced) and June 4 (declaration of results), the BJP spent the highest (Rs 853 million) on political advertising on various Google platforms; this was followed by the Congress (Rs 453 million) and the BJD (Rs 193 million).

On Meta, between March 8 to June 6, the BJP’s page at the national level spent the highest, nearly Rs 194 million on 43,455 political advertisements (as per meta advertisement library data). There were 16 other BJP state unit pages which incurred Rs 61 million on 11,544 advertisements. This was followed by the Congress, which spent close to Rs 108 million on 845 advertisements.

It is to be noted here that a considerable amount of money is spent on digital advertising each election, which is beyond effective monitoring and oversight despite the ECI’s efforts.

No laws yet

Despite social media becoming the hotbed of electoral campaigning and political activity, there is no specific legislation guiding online spending for election advertising. In 2013, the ECI extended existing legal provisions related to election campaigning to apply to social media in the same manner it applies to other forms of electoral campaigning using other media platforms.

In January 2022, the ECI added a new column in candidates’ election expenditure returns to report the money spent on digital campaigning, which is also applicable to political parties. This expenditure shall include all expenditure on campaigning, including expenditure on advertisements on social media, payments to internet companies, expenditure on content development, etc.

The grey area

Political spending on digital platforms is not only done directly by political parties or candidates but also indirectly by related affiliates or sympathetic groups which may or may not necessarily be linked to the contestants. The ECI’s guidelines do not adequately regulate third-party expenditure on online political advertising. Even the Model Code of Conduct and the Voluntary Code of Ethics do not adequately cover this area.

Candidate spending is capped, and this includes money spent by third parties. If a political party spends in favour of a candidate, it is treated as a third party spent. However, this has not been successfully extended to social media platforms. The term ‘online political advertisement’ is also not defined by either the ECI or in the Representation of Peoples Act.

Based on ADR's analysis of official expenditure statements, it is also observed that some parties and candidates also fail to comply with the ECI’s disclosure format. A separate dedicated account of expenses incurred on virtual campaigns is often missing. There is also an inordinate delay in the availability of data on parties’ election expenditure on the ECI’s website. The expenditure statements for 13 parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are not available to date.

Uneven playing field

Like traditional campaign spending, there is an uneven level-playing field in the online spending space as well. Access to greater funds determine the opportunity to recruit specialised agencies/campaign managers, and run robust digital campaigns.

Among the top spenders on social media platforms are pages run by third-party campaigners, which may include proxy pages, surrogate, and shadow advertisers. According to ADR analysis of Meta ad library data, among the top 100 spenders on the platform during the 2024 general elections were 19 proxy/third party pages which together spent nearly Rs 190 million on 14,982 advertisements.

Money thus spent is difficult to monitor and is not reported. Social media algorithms and the use of proxies to spread political messages make it hard to track spending. There are also definitional challenges when it comes to identifying and regulating third-party accounts.

ECI must…

The ECI must consider capping online spending by political parties to ensure accountability and protection of the level-playing field. In addition to a spending limit, it is equally important to ensure that spending by political parties on online campaigning is reported systematically and transparently. All parties must furnish details of the agencies hired to handle their digital campaigns in their expenditure statements.

The ECI needs to engage field experts for better monitoring. For greater transparency and accountability, it must ensure that the political parties adhere to the prescribed format for election expenditure disclosure. At the same time, these disclosures must be such that a common citizen can access and scrutinise them.

(Shelly Mahajan is program and research manager (Political Party Watch), ADR, New Delhi. X: @mahajan_shelly.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.