Mumbai, India — In November, as India’s election marketing campaign was starting to take form, a catchphrase coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) began gaining traction.

“Modi ki assure” (Modi’s assure) was positioned by the governing social gathering as the private promise of the vastly common prime minister to Indian voters, because the BJP tried to attract a distinction with the seemingly hodgepodge coalition of opposition events railing in opposition to it. The BJP launched ads on Google with that tagline within the third week of November.

However across the identical time, one other organisation began pumping in thousands and thousands of rupees into an nearly identical-sounding marketing campaign: “Modi sarkar ki assure” (Modi authorities’s assure). The movies in that marketing campaign, which might proceed for months, typically referred merely to “Modi’s assure”.

In a single such commercial, aired on February 23, an actor portraying a younger entrepreneur reassures a father apprehensive about his son’s profession selection by telling him, “Papa, there may be Modi’s assure. Modi ji has promised that he’ll make India one of many locations with probably the most unicorn startups.” In the direction of the tip, he confidently asserts that “due to Modi’s assure, each startup will begin in India”.

Solely these ads weren’t from the BJP. They have been paid for by the Indian taxpayer and have been a part of a marketing campaign rolled out by the Indian authorities’s promoting company, the Central Bureau of Communication (CBC). No less than one different marketing campaign, with a number of ads unveiled in March, additionally echoed the wording and look of the BJP’s election slogans.

On March 22, the nation’s largest opposition social gathering, the Indian Nationwide Congress, filed a grievance with the Election Fee of India (ECI) – the constitutional physique overseeing the nation’s elections – alleging that these CBC ads violated election guidelines by misusing public funds for the governing social gathering’s marketing campaign.

Now, an Al Jazeera investigation reveals the dimensions of the CBC’s spending on authorities ads that seem to imitate the BJP’s marketing campaign messages and that, in response to critics, increase questions in regards to the potential of non-partisan establishments to make sure a degree enjoying area within the election.

The federal government’s communication company spent almost 387 million rupees ($4.65m) on Google ads in just below 4 months, from when it first began promoting commonly on the web platform in November, till March 15, when it final launched an commercial. India’s nationwide elections have been formally introduced on March 15. From that time on, authorities businesses are barred from any ads.

In truth, in these 113 days, the CBC was India’s largest spender on political ads on Google, whereas the BJP stood in second place with 314 million rupees ($3.7m). The CBC spending on this interval was 41 % greater than the 275 million rupees ($3.3m) that the first opposition Congress social gathering had spent in nearly six years– between June 2018 and March 15, 2024 – in response to Google Advertisements Transparency information on this interval.

And lots of the CBC ads have been a part of the campaigns with slogans that impartial election transparency activists and the opposition say have been too near the BJP’s promotional messages.

Opposition events have lengthy accused the BJP, beneath Modi, of turning supposedly impartial authorities businesses into extensions of their equipment – a cost the BJP has denied.

To Akshay Marathe, a spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Occasion (AAP), which guidelines within the capital New Delhi and is part of the Congress-led opposition INDIA alliance, the controversial commercial spending of the CBC is one with that sample.

“Modi ensures that he and he alone will train any energy in India,” Marathe stated.

Al Jazeera sought responses from the CBC’s director-general, Dhirendra Ojha, and two further director-generals, Rajesh Kumar Jha and Ajay Agrawal, for the allegations in opposition to the organisation, on Could 10. They haven’t responded.

‘Taking misuse to new heights’

In early March, Lalu Prasad Yadav, a veteran opposition chief, mocked the Indian prime minister for not having a household: Modi left his spouse when he was youthful and has no kids.

In response, BJP leaders modified their social media profiles, including “Modi ka parivar” (Modi’s household) subsequent to their names.

As with “Modi ki assure”, the CBC launched ads with related themes on YouTube and Google Advertisements, selling the “Modi ka parivar” marketing campaign. These ads are a few of the company’s costliest particular person ads so far.

In an commercial revealed on March 9, Modi is seen celebrating the competition of Diwali with the armed forces. The members of the family of a soldier lacking – who miss their son, husband and father – say Modi celebrates Diwali with troopers as a result of he’s a part of their household. They announce, “We’re all Modi’s household”. For the commercial, which ran for 5 days to achieve between 6 and seven million folks, the federal government company spent about 550 thousand rupees ($6,600), considered one of its costliest particular person ads.

In its grievance to the Election Fee, the Congress additionally accused the Modi authorities of politicising the nation’s armed forces.

Then, in April, per week earlier than the primary part of India’s mammoth election, the BJP launched its marketing campaign manifesto, that includes a photograph of Modi, the social gathering’s saffron colors and the slogan “Modi ki assure”, all components used within the CBC’s publicly funded ads.

To be clear, transparency specialists and former election officers say that events in energy have lengthy tried to make use of public infrastructure for his or her campaigning. In June 1975, India’s then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was disqualified from workplace after a court docket discovered her responsible of utilizing authorities equipment for her marketing campaign.

“This authorities has not invented the misuse of public funds for self-promotional ads,” stated Vipul Mudgal, the chief government of Widespread Trigger, a New Delhi-based watchdog civil society organisation, whose petition with the Supreme Court docket additionally led to the scrapping of the Modi authorities’s controversial electoral bonds scheme in February 2024.

Abdulla Kutty, the BJP’s nationwide vice chairman, advised Al Jazeera that “authorities ads selling their work, schemes and programmes have been a standard observe since independence”.

In 2003 after which once more in 2022, Widespread Trigger filed petitions with the Supreme Court docket in search of stricter regulation over authorities promoting that suggestions over into promotional campaigning for the governing social gathering.

In 2015, the Supreme Court docket established tips stating that authorities promoting shouldn’t promote political pursuits and should be associated to the federal government’s duties.

However almost a decade later, the problem has solely grown, say transparency activists.

SY Quraishi, a former chief election commissioner who oversaw Indian elections between 2010 and 2012, stated that the Election Fee has lengthy been demanding that authorities ads with “political connotations” be made “unlawful for a minimum of six months earlier than the elections to take care of the extent enjoying area”.

“Nonetheless, authorities after authorities ignored the proposal,” Quraishi stated.

And Mudgal of Widespread Trigger stated that whereas all political events in energy had exploited authorities sources for campaigning, “this authorities is chargeable for increasing the sport, taking the misuse to new heights”.

More cash, extra freedom to promote

In Could 2023, almost a yr earlier than the beginning of India’s 2024 elections, an government order by the Modi authorities elevated the finances of the CBC by 275 %, from 2 billion rupees ($24 million) to about 7.5 billion rupees ($90 million).

This order required ministries and authorities departments to allocate 40 % of their promoting and publicity budgets to the CBC, considerably increasing the company’s sources in an election yr.

On social media platform X, Congress chief Jairam Ramesh criticised the finances enhance and stated that like different authorities businesses, the CBC would “be the spearhead of the Modi Govt’s election marketing campaign for 2024”.

However the BJP’s Kutty stated the rise within the authorities’s promotional finances was solely in step with the nation’s financial development. “India is a creating nation and the sixth-largest economic system globally. India’s finances allocations are anticipated to extend naturally,” he stated. “These allegations are baseless.”

Nonetheless, that bloated finances wanted another rule tweak to allow the CBC’s on-line spending.

That change got here in November 2023, when the federal government adopted a brand new Digital Commercial Coverage, which allowed the CBC – which till then might solely promote by way of conventional mediums equivalent to newspapers, TV, radio and outside ads – to publish ads on digital platforms like Google. Inside days, the organisation started to swamp Google with the “Modi Sarkar ki assure” ads.

Whereas the CBC’s $4.65 million spending on Google ads pales compared with its whole commercial spend of 30 billion rupees ($360m) throughout mediums within the 4 years between 2018-2019 and 2022-2023, it displays a broader surge in digital political spending within the 2024 election.

Earlier than the 2019 common election in India, between November 1, 2018, and March 15, 2019, the whole spending on political Google ads was 11.77 million rupees ($140,000), of which greater than 99 % was spent by the BJP.

In the identical interval earlier than the present elections, between November 1, 2023, and 15, March 2024, the whole political commercial spend amounted to just about 1.3 billion rupees ($15.9 million) — greater than 100 occasions the 2019 determine.

The 2023 Google Information Initiative and Kantar survey confirmed that 93 % of Indian language customers entry information by way of YouTube. About 80 % of Indian web customers who’re eligible to vote eat content material by way of YouTube, making it some of the influential media platforms in India. Greater than 90 % of the CBC’s commercial spend on Google was on movies.

The surge in spending on Google promotions additionally exposes weaknesses in India’s regulatory mechanism to supervise political commercial spending by the federal government, say specialists.

Perils of a ‘brute majority’

The 2015 Supreme Court docket order barring overt political partisanship in authorities ads led to the creation of the Committee on Content material Regulation of Authorities Commercials (CCRGA), which was tasked with watching over all publicly-funded ads.

However the committee’s members are appointed by the very authorities whose ads it’s meant to scrutinise. And it solely has the ability to advocate ideas on ads to India’s Ministry of Info and Broadcasting – to which the CBC studies.

Because it was arrange in 2016, the CCRGA’s actions have primarily focused the Aam Aadmi Occasion’s authorities in New Delhi, which has additionally been criticised by the Supreme Court docket for a bloated promoting finances.

In the meantime, as soon as elections are introduced, the Election Fee is in command of making certain that marketing campaign guidelines are adopted. Opposition events have repeatedly criticised the ballot panel, accusing it of bias in favour of the BJP. Marathe, the AAP spokesperson, and senior Congress chief Prithviraj Chavan advised Al Jazeera they’d little hope that the Electoral Fee would act on the complaints in opposition to the CBC.

Quraishi, the previous election fee boss, stated that whereas the Electoral Fee should act in opposition to all complaints, its mandate on election spending kicked in solely on March 15, when the dates for the seven-phase vote have been introduced. The CBC has not marketed since March 15.

The BJP has persistently pushed again in opposition to opposition allegations that India’s election equipment – from establishments just like the Electoral Fee to the digital voting machines – are biased or doctored to assist Modi’s social gathering win. India’s governing social gathering factors out that the opposition has received a number of state legislature elections beneath the identical mechanism.

Nonetheless, stated Niranjan Sahoo, an skilled on political funding reforms on the Observer Analysis Basis, establishments tasked with accountability in India’s parliamentary setup usually do higher “when the ruling authorities lacks a brute majority and should depend on coalition companions”.

The Modi authorities enjoys the most important majority of any authorities in 35 years.