The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become the number one spender on digital advertising platforms like Google. It has spent over 100 crore rupees since 2018, when Google Ads launched its Election Advertising Verification Policy. This spending surpasses the combined expenditure of other political parties, such as the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and the political advisory firm Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) since the policy’s inception.
Google’s Election Advertising Verification Policy
Google’s Election Advertising Verification Policy requires advertisers to undergo verification before running ads on the platform. This verification process includes confirming the advertiser’s identity and eligibility criteria and disclosing information that clearly shows who paid for the ads. These measures aid in collecting data about ad spending by political parties.
BJP Dominates Ad Spending
The BJP has dominated ad spending, accounting for over 73% of the total 217,992 content pieces categorized as “political advertisements” by Google, with a total spending of over 161,000. These campaigns target states like Karnataka, with a spending of 10.8 crore rupees, followed by Uttar Pradesh (10.3 crore), Rajasthan (8.5 crore), and Delhi (7.6 crore).
| Party | Spending |
| BJP | 100 cr |
| Congress | 45 cr |
| DMK | 42 cr |
The 3 political party with most speding during may 31 2018 to 25 April 20124. Google tranparency centre
Opposition’s Expenditure
The Congress ranks second in total ad spending, with 45 crore rupees spent since 2018, less than 50% of the BJP’s total spending. Its ad campaigns target states like Karnataka and Telangana (with over 9.6 crore rupees spent each) and Madhya Pradesh (6.3 crores).
Following the Congress is the ruling party of Tamil Nadu, DMK, which has spent 42 crore rupees on ad campaigns since 2018. Additionally, the political advisory firm Populus Empowerment Network has spent 16.6 crore rupees on behalf of DMK since February of this year. DMK focuses mainly on Tamil Nadu, with additional spending in Karnataka (14 lakh rupees) and Kerala (13 lakh rupees) for digital ads outside the state.
All these figures are according to the Google Transparency Data Center.
2024 Lok Sabha Election Ad Spending
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election ad spending, the Congress surpassed the BJP with 18 crore rupees compared to the BJP’s 14 crore rupees between April 1, 2024, and April 26, 2024. BJP’s ads mainly focus on projecting Narendra Modi’s image in different languages.
After these top political parties, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party spent nearly 4 crore rupees, while the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh spent around 1.5 crore. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) allocated 1.3 crore rupees to its ads.
The ads mainly focus on Tamil Nadu, which spends 17 crore rupees in the state, followed by Andhra Pradesh (6 crore) and Rajasthan (4 crore). Political parties have allocated 74.9% of their budget to video ads, 25% to image ads, and the remaining portion to text ads.
Conclusion
These figures represent the total ad spending of political parties based on data from the Google Transparency Center since 2018. The BJP leads in spending, followed by the Congress and other parties.
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