Picture this. An illustration of Uddhav Thackeray, about to stab an innocuous Hindu man tying his shoelaces. Above this, a screenshot from a dubious website asks if the Maha Vikas Aghadi is going to appoint a Muslim as the deputy chief minister. “Our Hinduism is different,” reads the text.

While this may sound supportive of the electoral messaging of the BJP and its allies in poll-bound Maharashtra, it was just a poster on an Instagram page called Lekha Jokha Maharashtracha on September 28. 

This page has spent over Rs 13 lakh promoting such content on Facebook and Instagram over the last one month. But it’s only one of four Meta pages following a similar strategy in Maharashtra, Newslaundry found. These have spent Rs 35.38 lakh on Meta ads between September 20 and October 20. 

In case of ads about politics, elections, or social issues such as these, Meta’s ad policy requires advertisers to get a disclaimer approved. The disclaimer should accurately disclose the name of the person or entity running the ads, for transparency reasons. It should have accurate, valid information at all times. 

Yet, none of the phone numbers provided by these pages in the Meta ad library were reachable when Newslaundry tried over a span of several days. 

As they are not officially owned by the BJP, they are not counted as part of the party’s election spending. This allows them to operate under the radar, bypassing accountability for content that might otherwise invite scrutiny from the Election Commission, especially the communal nature of some ads.

Similar ads had been circulated via other pages in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.

The content sponsored through these pages included posters and videos that were priced anywhere between Rs 100 and Rs 3,000 each. Many of them had hashtags such as #BJP4Maharashtra, #BJPGovernment #jaishriram and #AntiHinduMVA.

The messaging seemed to be similar: to paint the opposition as anti-Hindu and anti-development, and the BJP and its allies as tough on crime, against “jihadis”, and as the champion of welfare schemes.