LG office hits back at Bharadwaj’s PR attack over AAP spending

New Delhi
Lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena’s office on Wednesday hit back at Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj’s criticism of the LG’s office spending funds on social media firms, saying that the AAP spent ₹1,900 crore on advertising from 2019-2023 and calling it “laughably atrocious” of the AAP to be spending so much despite severe financial distress during two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An official from the LG’s office said that a tender of ₹1.5 per year was issued, mainly to prevent the spread of misinformation, but the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said that no previous LG “hired such an expensive social media agency for his image and office”.
Officials with the LG’s office countered, saying that the state government has spent at an average of ₹36 crore per month and ₹1.2 crore per day on advertising for “personal glorification of its leader and its political party (AAP)”.
“It would not be out of place to mention here that the total ads spent during five years of Sheila Dikshit regime during 2009-2010 to 2013-2014, amounted to a meagre ₹87.5 crore in comparison to the ₹1,900 crore of this government… It is ironical that such statements come from a minister of a government that spends ₹30 lakh per month ( ₹1 lakh per day) on an agency for issuing press releases alone, ₹14 crore annually on an agency for live streaming of its political programs, ₹4 crore annually on a PR agency and ₹2 crore annually on a social media agency,” said an official from the LG’s office.
The AAP hit back, saying that the LG started comparing himself to an elected government that has approved budgets for publicity.
“The problem of LG saab and his secretariat is that they have started comparing themselves with the elected government or CM of Delhi. They have forgotten that the elected Prime Minister, the elected ministers of central government and elected CMs of states occupy public facing offices who are popularly elected by the people. Their budgets for publicity and social media are approved by their cabinet and later approved by the elected parliament or the elected legislative assemblies of respective states,” an AAP spokesperson said.
The official also said that in successive press statements issued by the LG office, the choice of words used for the CM and the government has been abusive, defamatory, misleading and patently false.