Modi most followed on Twitter, Kejriwal biggest gainer

Modi most followed on Twitter, Kejriwal biggest gainer

 BJP's Narendra Modi remains the

'most-followed' Indian politician on Twitter by a wide margin

of over 15 lakh followers, but it's AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal

who has gained the most with about 6.3 lakh new followers in

just over last three months.

          With Twitter emerging as a major campaign-ground for the

first time for Lok Sabha elections, all major parties and

leaders are using this platform and other social networks to

reach out to the people, especially the young population which

is present on these online forums in a big way.

          According to latest data compiled by Twitter India, the

Indian unit of US-based microblogging giant, BJP's Prime

Ministerial candidate has now close to 3.7 million followers

-- the highest for any Indian politician.

          Modi has a lead of more than 1.5 million over second-

ranked Shashi Tharoor, a Congress leader with 2.13 million

followers.

            Kejriwal (1.62 million) comes third, followed by Manmohan

Singh (1.17 million) at fourth, BJP's Sushma Swaraj in the

fifth spot (1.03 million) and beauty queen-turned-politician

Gul Panag at sixth (0.83 million), Twitter data shows.

            Subramaniam Swamy of BJP is at seventh (0.49 million),

J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah is ranked eighth (0.48

million), Ajay Maken of Congress at ninth (0.27 million) and

Kumar Vishwas of AAP at 10th (0.25 million).

            The top 20 club also includes Smriti Irani, Shivraj Singh

Chouhan, Derek O'Brien, Varun Gandhi and Meenkashi Lekhi,

among others, shows the data as on April 12, 2014.

            However, when it comes to the rise in number of followers

since January 1, 2014 -- a period also marked with increased

political activities --  Kejriwal, who headed Delhi government

for 49 days after his AAP rewrote history in assembly polls

last year, has seen over 6.29 lakh additional followers.

            Modi comes a close second with 6.28 lakh new followers in

the same period, followed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

(1.8 lakh), Sushma Swaraj (1.76 lakh), Kumar Vishwas (1.28

lakh) and Shashi Tharoor (1.26 lakh) among the top-20

politicians, shows the data from the micro-blogging site.