Image Courtesy: Rediff

Advertisements are an essential part of marketing, but marketing has never played such a huge role in politics as it has in the present time. Much to the angst of people, the tax payers money is being splashed for advertisements even as the tax burden continues to increase. The established parties and the parties which seek to breathe in fresh air is also guilty of this extravagant behavior. Many state governments, the central government and more so particularly the Delhi government which was voted to power on the theme of new politics are guilty of this extravaganza.

Image Courtesy: acrossupdate A criminal waste of tax payers money The ruling party at the center and Delhi and many other states have taken the advertisements route to flaunt their achievements. Mind you, advertisements for awareness and information is good, like in the case of a change in policy wrt tax or a new policy which needs people attention is necessary. However, to flaunt achievements and make political campaign through ads is a criminal waste of taxpayers money. Image Courtesy: graphisads Kejriwal rapped by CAG, Modi government tops ad expenditure The CAG recently had rapped the Chief Minister of Delhi for the wasteful expenditure on advertisements and rightly so. Kejriwal who came on the plank of addressing the plight of common man and introducing a new brand of politics seem to have changed goal posts now. There has been a spree of ads worth crores of rupees spent by the Delhi government partly justified by the need to inform people on the odd-even rule but largely wasteful on other fronts, the recent one being an ad that seeks to appease the Punjabi community given the impending Punjab elections. Image Courtesy: twimg The Prime Minister even as he has sought austerity by calling conducting elections at the same time and in asking the well-off to delink from subsidies, his government has been guilty of large-scale expenditures on advertisements. Recently it was found the central government tops the ad list above multinational companies. Other state governments and different political parties are guilty of the same wasteful expenditure used for flaunting their achievements. Notable examples of state governments include Jayalalithaa government of Tamilnadu. Image Courtesy: hindustantimes

The Logical Indian requests the people of India to take a stance if they need advertisements to endorse a government or not. If not, they should call for their respective political parties which they support to put an end to this practice of flaunting their achievements using tax payers money. Even as new taxes are being levied to shore up resources, the available resources are being wastefully spent on ads. Some of the best leaders of states or center post-independence never used the advertisement route, their work speaks for themselves, it is high time our politicians take a leaf out of our own past and emulate them