Eleven private advertising companies will promote the Maharashtra government's policies and schemes, especially on social media, according to a government resolution issued last week.

The resolution says these agencies will use audio-visual media, posters and banners. There will be a major thrust on social media, and the use of hash-tags to create positive trends.

The agencies will have to ensure that information about the Fadnavis administration's schemes is conveyed properly, and work on his government's image. They'll need to talk about decisions like demonetisation and GST, which have been in the eye of a storm.

The BJP government is likely to spend a few hundred crores on the entire exercise. The Opposition has called such expenses unnecessary.

"There is a dedicated department called the DGIPR (Directorate General of Information and Public Relations) of the state government that does the same job. Why appoint agencies to it then? The BJP, through this, wants to dole out crores to agencies that are related to its party workers..." said Nawab Malik, a spokesperson for Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party.

DGIPR officials did not respond to India Today's request for a comment.

'TALIBANI STYLE OF FUNCTIONING'

Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena, the BJP's ally in Maharashtra, said the saffron party was becoming increasingly "intolerant" of criticism on social media.

Uddhav Thackeray, the president of the Sena, wrote in an editorial for his party's newspaper that the way young people were "being targeted for speaking against government policies" was "a Talibani style of functioning."

"The BJP is falling in the the pit which it dug for someone else."

He said the government feels that the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister "should not be an object of ridicule on social media."

But where, he asked, did these teachings go when former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "was made a butt of jokes on social media?"

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