Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress has alleged that the BJP paid social media content creators Sayak Chakraborty and Shamik Adhikari, popularly known as ‘NonSane Shamik’, to create and promote narratives favourable to the party ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.

The allegations came after an investigative report by The Indian Express on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls highlighted BJP's election-related expenditure across five states and Union Territories.

The TMC has claimed that West Bengal accounted for a significant share of the expenditure ahead of the Assembly polls.

According to claims circulated by the TMC on social media, around Rs 2.5 lakh was allegedly transferred to Chakraborty's account from BJP funds, while Adhikari allegedly received around Rs 13 lakh.

The claims could not be independently verified by Mathrubhumi English.

The TMC also cited videos made by the two creators before the elections as evidence of an alleged coordinated effort to influence public discourse.

One of the videos cited by the party involved Chakraborty's visit to Park Street's Oly Pub, where he discussed beef. Political opponents alleged that the video was intended to promote a particular political narrative and benefit the BJP. Those allegations have not been independently established.

The TMC also referred to Adhikari's 'Button' video, which dealt with Bengal's political climate and women's safety and subsequently went viral on social media.

Adhikari was later arrested after a woman who identified herself as his friend accused him of sexual harassment and physical assault.

The TMC alleged that the video was part of a paid campaign against political opponents.

The BJP has rejected the allegations of wrongdoing and maintained that payments made for election-related campaigning were transparent.

Senior BJP leader Sayantan Basu said political parties routinely pay advertising agencies and campaign professionals. He claimed that the BJP made its payments through banking channels and that details of the transactions had been submitted to the Election Commission.

‘Everyone pays advertising agencies. Any political party can pay someone for election campaigning. TMC pays, CPM has paid too. The BJP has made these payments transparently,’ Basu said.

He further alleged that the TMC had also engaged I-PAC for election-related work and questioned whether the consultancy had worked for the party without payment.

The allegations and counter-allegations come amid heightened political debate in West Bengal over the SIR exercise and campaign-related expenditure ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

BJP, TMC spend heavily on digital campaigns

The BJP and TMC spent crores on digital advertising in Bengal, with both parties using Meta extensively for election campaigning.

While the BJP's expenditure was significantly higher on both Google and Meta, the TMC relied more on its official and supporter-run pages to expand its reach.

The data also highlights the challenges in tracking the full scale of political spending across digital platforms.

Google advertising expenditure:

  • BJP: Rs 12.7 crore across 10,690 advertisements
  • Congress: Rs 1 lakh across 290 advertisements

Meta advertising expenditure:

  • BJP: Rs 6.5 crore across 2,735 advertisements
  • TMC: Rs 1.8 crore across 1,090 advertisements

Digital campaign oversight:

Despite the growing role of social media in election campaigns, monitoring and disclosure of political advertising expenditure online remains limited.

Although the Election Commission has rules governing digital campaign expenditure, tracking and regulating the full extent of such spending remains difficult in practice.