Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government has spent a whopping amount of Rs 43 crore on advertisements from August last year to January this year of which nearly Rs 29 crores was spent in just two months of December 2019 and January 2020 ahead of the Delhi assembly elections.
An RTI application filed by an activist named Vivek Kumar to the Directorate of Information and Publicity under Delhi government has revealed that the Aam Aadmi Party government has spent Rs 42.67 crore of public money on party’s promotion ahead of the Delhi assembly elections.
The details on total expenditure incurred on advertisement and publicity of Aam Aadmi Party in print media, internet media, electronic media and others from August 2019 to January 2020 is:
Ever since Arvind Kejriwal elected as Chief Minister of Delhi, his obsession with publicity and to create an image for himself by using public money is only increasing.
An earlier RTI document had revealed that Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party had spent about Rs 78 crore annually on advertisements in the first four years of its tenure, more than any previous governments in Delhi. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government had spent Rs 311.78 crore on advertisements between 2015 and 2019, on an average of Rs 77.94 crore annually, four times that of the Congress.
The AAP came to power in 2015 and spent Rs 81.23 crore on advertisements in 2015-16 and in 2016-17, the expenditure was Rs 67.25 crore, the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) said in reply to the RTI application. The Delhi government saw its maximum expenditure on advertisements in 2017-18 when it spent Rs 117.76 crore.
It is surprising to see that Arvind Kejriwal, who had come to power accusing Congress of corruption and inefficient governance structure, has himself resorted to unnecessary spending on boosting his publicity rather than utilising the public funds for furthering developmental activities.
