Assembly elections are scheduled in Maharashtra for this year, with polling set to take place in a single phase on November 20, followed by vote counting on November 23. However, the preparations for these elections began months ago, and the political environment is rife with propaganda, aggressive rhetoric, and a surge of misinformation and disinformation. Against this backdrop, a Facebook page called ‘महा बिघाडी – Maha Bighadi’ has emerged as a prominent source of controversial political advertisements. This proxy page, which primarily supports the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been aggressively targeting the ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ alliance, which includes the Indian National Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction), and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction). The name ‘Maha Bighadi’ itself is a distorted version of ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’. Alt News has previously exposed such proxy pages that were running anonymous BJP propaganda and targeting rival political parties and leaders.
The advertisements run by ‘महा बिघाडी – Maha Bighadi’ are aggressive in tone and full of misleading content. These advertisements target leaders of rival parties and try to malign them. For example, several advertisements portray Uddhav Thackeray as a ‘Muslim appeaser’ and Rahul Gandhi as ‘anti-Hindu’. Many of these advertisements focus on defaming key opposition leaders, using polarising language that aims to sway public opinion by targeting specific communities.
Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray being prominently targeted
Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray has been a frequent target of these divisive ads. In one such advertisement, he is portrayed as someone who shuns the Hindu festival of Ganeshotsav but celebrates the Muslim festival of Eid. Another ad takes his statement about providing proper representation to Muslims out of context, falsely suggesting that while his workers are Hindu, he is only offering political tickets to Muslims. Such ads are designed to tarnish Thackeray’s image, casting him as anti-Hindu.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.
