With COVID-related restrictions on public convocations not likely to go away before the two forthcoming state ballots in Bihar and Bengal, political parties are engaging all available digital guns to reach out to generation-y and the first-time voters.

People-to-people contact which has always been cherished in elections, has now become the biggest enemy for parties in the upcoming Bihar polls in public health dimension.

With the Election Commission making it clear that as of now they have no plans to postpone the polls, technology is set to take on a greater role. Not just Bihar, even Bengal, that goes to polls early 2021, has been staking big on ministerial advertisements.

Forbiding of political advertisements on google and twitter has brought Facebook India in an unwanted limelight of national digital political advertising space in the last three months.
As per Facebook India Ad library, between May28 and August 25 , 2020 ‘Bangladesh Gorbo Mamata’s page by Apac spent Rs31, 29,408 on 156 ads. The Baat Bihar ki’ page was the second highest disburser on the platform in same interval with an expense of Rs 26,18,069 on 296 ads.

A whole of Rs 7,738,564 was spent on e-political ads from West Bengal in the last three months while Bihar spent a total of Rs 5,797,419 in the same period.

While Bihar has traditionally been considered a backward state, it saw the highest percentage of internet growth in India in 2019. According to experts, Bihar polls will take the spending on digital medium to next stage.

The widespread Covid pandemic has accelerated the movement of political parties going digital for all sorts of propaganda, as stated by Naresh Arora, the director of creative political digital campaign management company DesignBoxed.