Twitter and elections

With the Lok Sabha polls round the corner, this might be a good time to look at the top Twitter influencers among our politicians

Founded some 13 years ago, the San Francisco-based social media platform Twitter will play more than an important role in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in India, if the current political narrative is to be believed. That the Parliamentary Standing Committee summoned the Twitter global chief to explain his stand on safeguarding citizens’ rights on social media platforms shows the seriousness being attached to Twitter in these fraught times.
 
Let’s check out 10 possible influencers in the Twitter gallery as the countdown to 2019 elections has begun.
 
The three ladies—Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati, newly-inducted Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — are at the bottom of this list with 99,400, 215,000 and 315,000 Twitter followers, respectively. Going by the numbers, they have to go aggressive to improve their social media standing.
 
Mayawati joined Twitter only in October 2018 and has sent out only 44 messages. While she has already got 99,400 followers, she’s not following anybody other than Twitter Support. Priyanka is the latest kid on the block. She joined Twitter earlier this month, coinciding with her entry into politics, and she hasn’t sent out any tweets so far. She’s managed a follower base of 7,215 but is following only seven — brother Rahul Gandhi and some others from the party. As for Mamata, she’s been around for almost five years on the platform and has tweeted 5,134 times. While her followers are at 3.15 million, she’s not much of a follower herself. She’s kept it short at 31, choosing to have actors and singers besides the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and politicians including Rahul Gandhi, Piyush Goyal, Arun Jaitley and Arvind Kejriwal on the list. She’s also following the Kolkata Police.
 
Nitin Gadkari is in the seventh place as per the number of followers. The road transport and highways minister has been a slow adopter of social media. Not too long ago, he was following only three; now the number has risen to 132. But he’s yet to embrace anything global on Twitter. He’s following most things BJP apart from the PMO and ministers. Having joined in December 2009, he’s sent out 3,070 tweets — most of them in the last few months. He’s being followed by 4.41 million.
 
Piyush Goyal is at number six with 5.1 million followers. Mostly tweeting achievements of the government, the minister for railways and coal has sent out 20,000 tweets since he joined in April 2013. He himself is following 497 including Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Ajay Devgn; business chambers and a couple of industrialists, apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and other party leaders.
 
Rahul Gandhi is on number five with 8.6 million followers. A regular voice on social media, he joined in April 2015 and has sent out 4,140 tweets. The Congress president follows only 206 including Priyanka, Akhilesh Yadav, Kanimozhi, Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Yadav. The list also has a mix of business people (Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Bhavish Aggarwal), celebrities (Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar) and top tech names (Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook)… There’s no prominent BJP name here.
 
Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav is a notch higher with 9.07 million followers at number four. The number of people he follows, at just 16, doesn’t compare with his popularity. And they are mostly actors/celebrities (like Vidya Balan, Amitabh Bachchan, A R Rahman). There’s no political party or politician he’s following right now. On Twitter since July 2009, he has sent out just 2,051 tweets in close to 10 years.
 
Amit Shah is third with 12.6 million followers. The BJP president, who joined Twitter in May 2013, is following just 282, most of them leaders from his party and related organisations apart from an actor or two.
 
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal has an impressive 14.5 million follower base. Since November 2011, when he got into Twitter, he has sent out 27,300 messages. He’s following 209, including leaders cutting across parties. PM Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Chandrababu Naidu, Omar Abdullah, Nitish Kumar, Sitaram Yechuri, Mamata Banerjee are among the names. The list does not ignore the lieutenant governor of Delhi despite the faceoffs.
 
Topping the list is, of course, the PM, with 45.7 million followers. A Twitterati since January 2009, he’s sent 22,400 messages, less than Kejriwal’s count. Of this list, Modi is following the maximum number of people and organisations at 2,124, including celebrities, industrialists, startups and both Indian and international media.
 
Will this effort translate into votes? There’s time still to work on the numbers.