With general elections around the corner, political parties are leaving no stone unturned to woo voters. The role of social media has become even more important as parties are cashing in on the platform to reap benefits of every political action.

Political parties have actively taken to Facebook for activities ranging from the party's promotion, advertising merchandise, and counting its achievements, Facebook advertisement data show.

Facebook has collected India-based data on advertisements on or after February 7, 2019. According to the statistics accessed by India Today TV, till March 2, the BJP and pro-Modi pages have topped the chart for spending on political ads on Facebook.

However, the data didn't disclose any information about the official page of the Congress. India Today TV has learnt that the Congress had not put a single ad post-February 8. All the advertisements put out on February 8 were taken down by Facebook since they didn't carry a disclaimer. Facebook takes down political ads which do not have a label.

Top spenders

According to the data accessed by India Today TV, 'Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat' -- an unverified page on Facebook that asks users to give feedback to the prime minister -- is the top spender on political ads. The page had spent more than Rs 1.2 crore on its 1,556 ads averaging to roughly Rs 7,700 per ad. The pro-Narendra Modi page has 3,00,000 followers on the social media platform and was founded on January 27 this year.

'Nation with NaMo', another Modi fan page that has over 1.1 million followers on Facebook, stood second on the list. The page had spent more than Rs 64 lakh on its 1,074 ads averaging to around Rs 6,000 per ad.

The third in the list was 'MyGovIndia'. The online citizen engagement platform's Facebook page had spent Rs 34 lakh for its 123 advertisements averaging to more than Rs 27,000 per ad. The page has more than 3,70,000 followers.

The fourth in the list was neither a political figure nor a party. The news app Daily Hunt (DailyHunt + DailyHunt App) stood at No. 4 for spending a total amount of Rs 33 lakh on its 16 ads, averaging to more than Rs 2 lakh per ad.

Average spending

Though the pro-BJP, pro-Modi pages spent the highest on political ads, the average spending didn't turn out to be the highest in these pages.

BabyChakra, an online parenting app, had paid the highest amount for its one ad costing Rs 6.2 lakh.

Second highest average spender on Facebook ads was news app Daily Hunt with average spending of Rs 5.4 lakh.

The third in the chart was the Bharatiya Janata Party which had published two ads post-February 7 averaging to Rs 3.3 lakh per ad.

Which political leader advertised the most?

According to the data, Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal was the most advertised politician since February 7. More than Rs 8.6 lakh have been spent to promote the Odisha CM's Facebook page for 32 advertisements.

The second most advertised politician's page was of BJP president Amit Shah. A little above Rs 2 lakh was spent on one ad posted by the page.

The third was the Facebook page of Narendra Khichar, BJP MLA from Mandawa, which had spent more than Rs 2 lakh on 216 advertisements. This was followed by BJP's national general secretary Muralidhar Rao who had spent around Rs 2 lakh for seven ads.

The advertisement data for Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi wasn't made available by Facebook.

Why Facebook ads are important?

Section 126 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 prohibits the media to display election matters 48 hours before the poll. However, digital spaces posting e-ads till date do not fall in the purview of this act.

The election commission is seeking the law ministry's approval to expand the provisions of the law to digital media as well. The Economic Times had reported about it. The estimated number of social media users in the country is around 3.2 crore.

Disclaimer: Data for the Congress isn't available because it didn't post any in the time period (February 7, 2019 - March 2, 2019) Facebook collected the data for. Among politicians, advertisement data on the Facebook pages of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi were not made public, even on Facebook's info section.

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