Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra seeking details of the process by which payments were made for social media campaigns for various central government schemes.
Mr. Sisodia’s move comes just 10 days after the Central Bureau of Investigation registered a preliminary enquiry against him and others in connection with alleged irregularities in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s social media campaign ‘Talk to AK’.
‘Followed process’
The party has maintained that no consultant was hired especially for the initiative. The Delhi government said that a proper tendering process was carried out after which a public relations company was appointed by the government in June last year to publicise its works for a period of one year. ‘Talk to AK” was then held in July.
In his letter to Mr. Misra, the Deputy CM sought details of social media campaigns for ‘Make in India’, ‘Narendra Modi app’, ‘Startup India’ and ‘Digital India’.
Mr. Sisodia sought to know details regarding central government agencies, private advertisement and event management companies, and whether a bidding process was adopted by the Centre for advertisements for Centre-run schemes on Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
“For social media campaigns, payments have to be made through credit cards and credit limit only. Which department, government-run agencies or private agencies’ credit cards and credit limits were used for making payments for social media campaign for Centre’s schemes?” asked Mr. Sisodia.
The Deputy CM also sought to know who developed the ‘Narendra Modi app’ and who has the ownership right to the app. He also sought to know how much money was spent on advertisements for the app.
CBI enquiry
On January 18, the CBI had registered a preliminary enquiry against Mr. Sisodia in connection with alleged irregularities in the ‘Talk to AK’ campaign.
The agency charged him on the basis of an alleged violation of extent rules and regulation in the campaign on social media, which was live-streamed on Google, Facebook and YouTube.
The CBI is also understood to be in favour of seeking necessary clarifications from a prominent PR agency, which was roped in by the AAP government for the event.
