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HomeOpinionRJD didn’t buy Facebook, Google ads. It cost them Bihar

RJD didn’t buy Facebook, Google ads. It cost them Bihar

The BJP issued ads about Article 370, and CAA, and how the Mahagathbandhan was working against national interest.

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Many analysts have looked at why the Mahagathbandhan failed to secure a majority in the Bihar assembly election. However, almost none of them see the importance of campaign as a factor that decided the fate of the coalition.

The role of the campaign was crucial because the victory margin on 23 seats was less than 2,000 votes for the winning candidate, while on 11 of these seats, it was less than 1,000 votes. The narrow vote margins indicate that the results could have been swayed in the other direction, had the campaign effectively mobilised potential voters. Of these low-margin seats, 12 were won by the Mahagathbandhan, nine went to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and one each to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and an independent candidate. Importantly, NOTA (None of the Above) vote share was greater than the margin by which many candidates lost in 19 of these 23 constituencies.

We also note that the Mahagathbandhan did much better compared to the NDA in the first two phases of polling. The Mahagathbandhan won 47 of the 71 seats that went to polls in the first phase and 42 of the 94 seats in the second phase. In the third phase, however, the Mahagathbandhan won only 21 of the 78 seats. It was in the third phase that the Mahagathbandhan was expecting to secure more seats.


Also read: Bihar election doesn’t reflect what is happening in India or in lives of Indians


Campaign, and the difference it made

Analysis also shows that Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) did not harm the Mahagathbandhan in the third phase, except on two seats. What then explains the Mahagathbandhan’s poor performance in the third phase? This is where we need to analyse the campaign strategies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

After noticing the massive crowds that Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav was drawing at his rallies, the BJP reinforced its campaign by launching direct attacks on Tejashwi, reminding voters of the “jungle raj” and raising polarising issues to consolidate the Hindu vote. Our DigiCamp Bihar 2020 study shows that several ads were issued on Facebook that attacked the RJD and the Congress for siding with ‘anti-national’ forces. In one such video ad, Mashkoor Usmani, the former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) student union president, who was contesting from Jale constituency on a Congress ticket, was painted by the BJP as ‘a supporter of Jinnah’.

Similarly, many of the BJP campaign ads stoked the fear of ‘Naxalism’ because the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan included Left parties in its alliance. The BJP also issued ads about Article 370, and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and how the Mahagathbandhan was working against national interest. Often, these ads were timed with BJP leaders highlighting these issues during the campaign rallies — a reflection of the close alignment between offline and online campaign strategies. These polarising yet well-thought-out strategies by the BJP did result in the mobilisation of voters and cost the RJD dearly.

The NOTA vote reflects the growing dissatisfaction with the existing political establishment. But the opposition parties were unable to tap into this growing voter disenchantment and present themselves as an alternative. The NOTA voters could have been mobilised by the RJD through well-though-out strategies, keeping the campaign more dynamic.


Also read: NDA won in Bihar by reminding people of ‘Jungle Raj’. But data shows it’s a myth


Facebook, RJD’s weak link

The RJD and Tejashwi Yadav, though active on Facebook, did not buy campaign advertisements. Not buying campaign ads limits the engagement and reach of pages on Facebook. This means that even if Tejashwi Yadav was very active, the posts would not have appeared before those who are not following his or his party’s pages. In this scenario, followers may play an important role in promoting those pages by sharing the content. However, the follower count may not be a good indicator of measuring the reach and influence of such pages. Many followers are silent observers and often limit their participation to liking the posts. Only a handful of supporters actively share posts. For example, while Tejashwi Yadav’s Facebook page has 1.5 million followers, most of the posts get an average of 2,000 shares only. Some posts are shared more widely and reach 20,000 to 25,000-mark, but such posts are limited.

By not advertising on Facebook, the RJD allowed its opponents to set the agenda and perception of the party. For example, there were several pages that attacked the RJD and its leader Lalu Prasad Yadav and hosted a number of uncivil ads. The most prominent parody account was ‘Rashtriya Jangal Dal’. A reader, not careful enough, would mistake it for the original account of the RJD. Another account attacking the RJD was ‘Bhak Budbak’. These two accounts together spent close to Rs 15 lakh on Facebook advertising beginning the first week of September till 7 November. Several of the ads issued by these two pages were subsequently taken down by Facebook for violating its ads policy. Yet, the manner in which these pages were able to exploit the loopholes in Facebook’s political advertising policies in India proves that the company treats the developed and developing markets differently.

Both the BJP and the Janata Dal (United) advertised on Google, another important medium to reach out to the potential voters. Our pre-poll survey, conducted by Ipsos, a market research company, with a sample of 2,497 respondents between 26 September and 10 October, shows that YouTube was the most popular medium (52.2 per cent), followed by WhatsApp (48.7 per cent) and Facebook (45.7 per cent) among the internet users in Bihar. While the RJD had a YouTube channel, the party didn’t buy any ads on Google, which again limited its campaign reach.

While the ground-level campaign helps in mobilising support of the grassroots, online campaign is important to reach out to the young voters. In a highly mobile and interconnected world, no longer is an election fought only on one platform. The building of perception, both within and outside the state, is important to influence public opinion. While the voting decision is often influenced by multiple factors, one cannot ignore the network effect that is generated on account of interactions between offline and online world, and real issues and perceptions.

Source: Ipsos pre-poll survey

It’s no surprise our pre-poll survey showed that 17 per cent of the respondents believed that Bihar received a package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. Social media is now an integral part of any campaign strategy. It requires hybrid articulations to reach out to the potential voters. The success of the NDA was also on account of the BJP’s dynamic and flexible campaign strategies, calibrated according to the exigencies.

Taberez Ahmed Neyazi @TaberezNeyazi is Assistant Professor of Political Communication and New Media, and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Views are personal.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I feel sorry for those who wasted time on reading this article. I live in bihar , people have their own view here for voting , google ads and facebook are far from fetching vote…Seems to be author has seen bihar only on map and heard jungle raj only in movies and paers

  2. Of all the silly, chest beating, articles that was been written by liberals to justify explain away their defeat in Bihar elections, this must take the cake. By the way, when are we going to get over our colonized mind-set that we need to read commentary by “phoren” writers to understand what is happening in our country?

  3. The article is laughable. The villagers of Bihar are least conced about what is happening in the microworld of Facebook and Twitter users. Those who are addicted to these apps think this is the world. The author seems to be one of them. RJD lost because more people support the BJP-JDU combination. It is as simple as that.

  4. Professor, voters in Bihar who read FB and Google can be literally counted with your hands. Singapore is indeed far far away from the realities of Bihar and even India.

  5. This article comes across as a sales pitch on behalf of Facebook and Google. Wonder what the motivations of the “erudite” professor are.

  6. The only reason of RJD’s defeat was that it didn’t buy the EVM & the Election Commission. Even if RJD has lost, but the people of Bihar will fight for justice.In one way or the other RJD will form the government.
    Secondly, EVM should never be used further for election purposes……..

  7. Facebook, Twitter, Google do not allow most political ads during elections and most of polarizing ads are fact checked now.
    No wonder these companies rely on gullible Indians to make money during elections.

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