Himachal’s Congress govt spent twice as much on ads as previous BJP govt did in 2 years |
Wondering how a change in government can financially affect the media?
We’ve got the answers from one of India’s smallest states – Himachal Pradesh.
From January 2023 to February 2025, The Tribune newspaper received Rs 48.04 lakh in advertisements from the Congress-led government in the state. Under the previous BJP government, it got zero.
Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar also had a dry spell – zero, to be precise – under the BJP government before bagging Rs 35.59 lakh in ads from the Congress government in the same time period. And Dainik Jagran’s ad revenue spiked from a paltry Rs 73,203 to Rs 32.02 lakh.
Data from the state Information and Public Relations department indicates that between 2017 and 2022, the BJP spent Rs 2.98 crore on ads in the media. The Congress spent Rs 7.29 crore from 2023 to February 2025.
That’s a total of Rs 10.27 crore distributed across 117 news websites and print publications. Himachal’s ad expenditure pales when compared with its neighbouring state, Uttarakhand, which splurged over Rs 1,000 crore in the last five years. One reason could be that Himachal has a debt exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore and one of the highest debt-to-GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) ratios in the country.
According to the government data, 75........