PM Modi’s ‘48-month’ ad campaign on Punjab Government websites

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 12

With less than a year to go before the Lok Sabha election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre government has started campaigning online fervently. Under the advertisement related to four years of Modi-government are flashing several ‘Congress-ruled’ Punjab government websites.

The online campaign for Modi is going on right under the nose of the Congress government. The ad campaign seems to be targeted at Punjab, amongst the few non-NDA states, because no such advertisement has appeared on websites of neighbouring Haryana, Himachal Pradesh or Rajasthan till the filing of this story.

Several websites of the Punjab government, including that of the Department of Local government, some official websites of districts, including Patiala, Ludhiana, Bathinda, Sangrur, Ferozepur, Rupnagar, Pathankot, and even the site of the Chief Election Officer, Punjab, have the advertisement that appears across the screen with message of “48 months of transforming India” with tagline of ‘Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas’ alongside picture of PM Modi waving his hand.

The ad link further leads to a longer online campaign webpage of “48 months” related to the Modi-government on mygov.in.

Other than that, official websites of Amritsar, Fazilka and Ferozepur districts have advertisement of ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyan’ of the Centre government with picture of Modi sweeping with a broom. Even home page of Ferozepur district website has picture of Modi paying homage to martyrs Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.

Ironically, no such advertisements appear on the websites of BJP-ruled neighbouring Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan or even Chief Electoral Officer, Haryana, or the Department of Local Bodies of these states.

The district websites of Rajasthan, in fact, have ads about “Vasundhara Raje mobile app”. These ads don’t even appear on websites of several districts of Gujarat. Rather ad-link related to “Conclusion of Gujarat Jal Abhiyan” appears on these sites.