In 2024, The Commune had reported that DMK spent over ₹10 crore in social media ads Via PEN (Populus Empowerment Network) indirectly owned by MK Stalin’s son-in-law Sabareesan.
Populus Empowerment Network Private Limited (PEN) is a Chennai‑based company incorporated in 2022. It is the in-house agency of DMK handling digital and social media campaigns. While official filings list its directors as Manikandan Vasudevan and Prabhakaran Sekar V. Sabareesan (son‑in‑law of CM M.K. Stalin) is said to exercise indirect control over the company.
PEN has managed multiple political and promotional campaigns, including on platforms like Google and Meta.
In April 2024, the then Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai, contesting his first Lok Sabha election in 2024, intensified his attack on the ruling DMK and Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s family during his campaign. Accusing the DMK of large-scale misuse of public funds, Annamalai claimed the party spent ₹7.39 crore on social media advertisements through a company called Populous Empowerment Network Pvt. Ltd., allegedly owned by Stalin’s son-in-law, V. Sabareesan, who holds a 99% share. He described this as an example of “crony capitalism,” saying the chief minister’s family was “looting state funds over and over again.”
Annamalai’s allegations refer to paid advertisements run on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) under pages such as Ellorum Nammudan and Stalinin Kural, both managed by Populous Empowerment Network (PEN). The campaigns, launched around March 2024, promoted DMK content, including videos, songs, and anti-Modi messages. According to publicly available Meta Ad Library data, these pages collectively spent over ₹1.2 crore on Meta ads, with some individual ads costing up to ₹2 lakh each.
Reports also indicated that PEN spent an additional ₹9.25 crore on Google Ads. The company was earlier associated with developing the “Makkalin Mudhalvar” app and game designed to promote the DMK’s “Dravidian Model of governance.” Annamalai accused the DMK of misusing state resources for political propaganda while claiming that Modi’s “guarantees” would end such nepotism, separatist rhetoric, and family rule in Tamil Nadu.
Cut to 2025, the ad spends are back in scrutiny. Let’s analyse the social media adverts and how much was spent for each of these ads.
Time Frame For Analysis: January 2025 – October 2025
Since January 2025, a total of ₹1.24 crores have been spent on 229 Google Ads.
Let’s deep dive into some of the recent spends.
The highest-spending days were concentrated in late October 2025 (Oct 22–25), with some days seeing spend up to ₹150,000 and dozens of ads launched, typically in bursts.
Between October 22nd and 24th, 2025, PEN poured ₹125K–₹150K into a single campaign, publishing rapidly pushing it out to an estimated 2–2.25 million viewers.
Ads were shown just about former DMK minister Senthil Balaji who has come to be identified as ₹10 Balaji because of the allegations of scam in TASMAC popularized by Vijay during the Karur Stampede Tragedy.
The average spend per ad by Populus Empowerment Network Private Limited during January 1, 2025 to October 25, 2025 is approximately ₹47,385 per ad.
As you can see, there has been a massive increase in the amount spent since July 2025 as the news cycle was majorly against the DMK government – from sanitation workers protest to Karur Stampede.
Out of the 80 visible ads reviewed, 24 were removed by Google for policy violations, resulting in an approximate removal rate of 30%.
The amount spent on these removed ads was around ₹34.35 lakhs.
The top spending ads ranged from ₹2.5-4.5 Lakhs each, with most high-budget campaigns running for extended periods (30-64 days). Notably, several of the highest-spending ads were removed, including:
- June-August campaign: ₹4.25 Lakhs
- June-July campaign: ₹3.25 Lakhs
- September campaign: ₹2.75 Lakhs
This is just in Google. Let’s take a look at how much money DMK has splurged in Meta (Facebook and Instagram).
Meta Spend Of DMK
PEN runs DMK propaganda pages called Ellorum Nammudan in Facebook (596K followers as on Oct 25, 2025) and dmk_ellorumnammudan in Instagram (113K followers as on Oct 25, 2025).
According to Meta’s Ad Library, ₹3,532,165 was spent from 25 July 2025 – 22 October 2025.
Most of its spending has gone towards ads in Instagram.
And like in Google, a lot of money has been splurged on bytes of Senthil Balaji’s press conference in light of Karur Stampede.
From January 2025 to October 2025, a total of 1054 ads have been been placed through Meta.
In total, PEN has spent ₹4.1 crore for ads through Meta.
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