Ahead of Maharashtra polls, pro-BJP proxy pages spend over Rs 35 lakh to smear opposition

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.

Obscure but top grossers

The largest spender of these, Lekha Jokha Maharashtracha, shelled out Rs 13.62 lakh and was the seventh-highest in Maharashtra during the period. Maha Bighadi, which spent Rs 8.29 lakh, emerged as the 12th highest spender. Modirashtraa, which shelled out Rs 6.99 lakh, was the 15th highest spender, while Distoy Faraj Shivshahi Parat, which spent Rs 6.47 lakh, was the 17th highest spender.

Lekha Jokha Maharashtracha had started its Facebook page on June 13, 2023, when it was called “The Kingmaker” – it changed its name 10 days later. Its address is listed as Pune. The Maha Bighadi page, meanwhile, was created in May last year and operates from Dharavi in Mumbai.

Distoy Farak Shivshahi Parat was created in July 2019 and its listed address is also Mumbai. It follows only three accounts on Instagram – BJP’s minority morcha wing, a Modi fan page, and MahaBighadi. 

Similarly, Modirashtraa, which was created in March this year and also has its location set to Mumbai, follows only five pages on its Instagram - Narendra Modi, Devendra Fadnavis, Amit Shah, BJP4india, and BJP4maharashtra. 

Two of these four – Distoy Farak Shivshahi Parat and Maha Bighadi – have also listed websites but they are dummy pages with just the name of the page and a privacy policy.

Notably, some of the ads on a page, such as Lekha Jokha, contain a disclaimer from another page, such as Maha Bighadi, which means that Maha Bighadi has sponsored the ad on Lekha Jokha’s page.

A focused narrative: ‘Jihadi’ opposition

A significant portion of the ads funded by these pages portray Uddhav Thackeray as a traitor to Hindutva, while portraying Rahul Gandhi as a sympathiser of jihadi elements. These posters and videos have reached millions of people in Maharashtra, where BJP and the Mahayuti are gearing up for a big showdown on November 20.

For instance, this poster by Maha Bighadi attempts to show Uddhav Thackeray’s “two sides”, his face split across a screen – one wearing a skullcap and another with an orange tint. It received over 5 lakh views. 

In a particularly well-produced video on October 18, Uddhav mumbles, “To all my Hindu brothers, sisters, mothers, I am your future CM!” A shady figure, resembling Sharad Pawar, enters the room and casts a spell on him. In the next scene, Uddhav addresses a rally, greeting only Muslims and Christians, until Sanjay Raut reminds him to acknowledge the Hindus. Uddhav ends by appreciating fatwas. The video closes with the screen turning green, accompanied by the caption: “Choose Fatwa lovers, choose MVA.”

Another poster put up by the same page received over 10 lakh impressions. It features Uddhav wearing a skullcap. The text on the poster claims that he is insisting on naming the Ghatkopar Mankhurd link road as the Sultanul Hind Khwaja. A message at the end of the poster read: let these anti-Hindus sit at home.

Another page that puts out a lot of communal content is Distoy Farak Shivshahi Parat, which can be loosely translated to “can see the difference, Shivaji-style rule is back.” 

An example of the content this page puts up is this video on September 30, which garnered over 15 crore impressions. It claims the Congress was supporting “jihadis” in Karnataka, with clips of supposed ‘sar tan se juda’ protests. It offers a contrast: Devendra Fadnavis taking action against Muslims protesting in Mumbai. And then it warns Maharashtra voters of what may happen if the MVA was voted to power. 

The same warning was issued in another post, which shows Rahul Gandhi with the text “Jan Nayak nah nalayak (worthless)”, alleging that he was arrogant, a hater of Hinduism, behind communalism and reservation politics in the country. “Beware, this Congress vulture is hovering over Maharashtra,” it reads. It received over 15,000 impressions. 

This video by Modirashtraa, features a BJP supporter speaking about love jihad, land jihad and vote jihad, and how support was being given to boys who trap, kidnap, elope with and then harm educated Hindu girls who go out for further studies. This has filled Hindus with rage, he claimed, while praising BJP for being a Hindu nationalist party. This was posted on October 22 and received nearly 40,000 impressions. 

A poster by Lekha Jokha that received over 1 lakh views shows Uddhav and Rahul speaking to each other. Waving the saffron flag was Thackeray’s culture, while the term ‘saffron terrorism’ was the Congress’s, reads the text. “So Uddhav + Congress = Muslim League.”

Another poster on the page says that after “love jihad” and “land jihad”, there is now “majdoor jihad (labour jihad)” - written in a green font. It quotes a News 18 Jharkhand article to support its claim. Over Rs. 3,000 was spent for the ad, which has received close to 8 lakh impressions. Another poster says that “Congressmen always insult Hindu deities”. 

Another ad is an animation of NCP leader Jitendra Ahwad – wearing a green shirt and insulting Hindus. The caricature speaks about things such as Ram not being a vegetarian, and insults Shivaji Maharaj and some Hindu saints. It ends with an appeal – like “Lord Krishna had killed Shishupala, we must also use our vote to defeat such modern Shishupalas”.

A poster by Maha Bighadi, which clocked 8 lakh views, accused Uddhav and Raut of turning their back towards Hinduism. “If you are a true Hindu lover, like our page.”

This ad is a parody of an Uddhav Thackeray interview. Uddhav begins with “aadaab”, and after a “facepalm” gif corrects himself to say “namaskaar”. The interviewer asks Uddhav why his party and coalition have not declared him as the CM candidate. When Uddhav does not answer, the interviewer says that maybe Sanjay Raut could answer the question. 

The interviewer says that back in Balasaheb’s day your party used to say, “our blood is Bhagwa, our hot Hindavi arrow”, and now the people say, “our blood is green, our hot Maulvi arrow”.

‘Tough-on-crime’ Fadnavis and women voters

While plenty of the posts were focused on promoting Devendra Fadnavis, many glorified the encounter of Akshay Shinde, the accused in a rape case in Badlapur. These posts credited Fadnavis for being tough on crime.

Such as this illustration by Distoy Farak Shivshahi Parat, which received over 3 lakh views. It showed a man in an orange waistcoat with “Deva” written on it, wearing half a dozen rakhis, holding a gun up in the air with one hand and protecting a child behind him with the other. A man lay struggling below, covered in smoke, assumingly just shot at. A news headline on the encounter was the only text in the post.

Another poster, which ran from September 25 for two days, was a photo of Fadnavis with children in the background. It received over 3 lakh impressions. 

This video, meanwhile, is a compilation of street interviews of women in support of the encounter.

This ad by Lekha Jokha Maharashtracha lists out how schemes for women have failed in Congress-governed states like Telangana, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, but have succeeded in BJP-governed states like Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra. It ends with a picture of Devendra Fadnavis, with the text – “Ladki Bahin” have the BJP’s aashirvaad. 

MVA threat to progress

Some posts also attempted to create fear that the MVA, if voted to power, would roll back welfare schemes. A post by Distoy Farak Shivshahi, which was viewed over 6 lakh times, claimed that Uddhav has said his government will shut down welfare schemes for women, such as free education, bill waiver, and the Ladki Bahin scheme.

A video by Modirashtraa from October 4 that has reached over 4 lakh views is an original song called “CM, karta kaye? (What are you doing CM)” – it has been featured multiple times by some of these pages.

It begins by showing NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader Rohit Pawar as Gautam Adani’s driver, portraying Uddhav as hungry for power, his saffron kurta changing to green as he sits on a chair labelled CM.

A split screen comparison by Distoy Farak claimed on October 14 that Uddhav wants to keep Mumbai ‘slum-like,’ while Fadnavis wants to make the city ‘slum- and encroachment-free’. With hashtags such as #BJP4Maharashtra, the three versions of this ad received over 6 lakh views.

As per Meta’s community guidelines, ads must not contain sensational or violent content or content that implies attributes like religion, gender identity, disability or mental health. Many of these pages continue to be in violation of them.

Several reports have earlier pointed to Meta approving new disclaimers for pages that have seen action for violation of its guidelines, allowing them to resume political advertising.

Newslaundry reached out to Meta for comment. This report will be updated if a response is received.

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