Mumbai, Oct 9 (IANS): In a last-minute move ahead of the state Assembly elections, the Maharashtra government has floated a tender for Rs 90-crore advertising campaign on digital platforms for just five days, earning the ire of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), here on Wednesday.

Terming it as “a massive waste of resources by a grand coalition government”, Congress Chief Spokesperson, Atul Londhe, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) state President Jayant Patil and Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi attacked the MahaYuti for the latest publicity blitzkrieg.

Londhe said that the proposed spending is a slur on the state burdened by a debt of more than Rs 80 lakh crore.

“This tender means that the government plans to spend Rs 18 crore per day for five days, or Rs 75 lakhs/ hour or almost Rs. 125,000/minute,” calculated Londhe to emphasise his point.

He slammed the government for the grandiose Rs 90-crore tender for five days of digital advertising as its strategy to take commissions while indulging in wasteful expenditure.

Targeting the ruling alliance, Patil said that so far, the MahaYuti regime has blown up nearly Rs 1,500 crore only for publicity for the government’s schemes.

“This money would have been of great help to our farmers, good quality uniforms for our schoolkids and skill development of our youth. How many roads could have been built in rural/tribal areas, or helped many women in different ways? But in the end, this government means corrupt governance with heavy advertising,” said Patil.

Attacking the government, Chaturvedi said that with every single day’s delay in announcing the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the ‘Mahajhoothi’ regime is busy issuing Government Resolutions (GRs) pertaining to various schemes.

She said that between September 30 to October 8 alone, the government issued a staggering 1,087 GRs, or 135 per day, related to almost all the departments on different public relations projects or other dubious ones.

“This is an open loot model… Don’t be misled, this is about Maharashtra being looted by an alliance that came together to power only on the basis of money and to loot more from the state,” said Chaturvedi sharply.

On October 7, the Directorate-General of Information and Publicity (DGIPR) issued the tender proposing to release advertisements for five days on popular websites, mobile screen advertising, standard banners on popular news portals, plus other social and creative posting, besides OTT and digital platforms, and GEO fencing and other media, to be submitted by Oct. 11 (in five days), in Marathi, English and Hindi.