World’s most followed leader on Facebook and the third most followed leader on Twitter, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday left everyone surprised as he announced that he was thinking to “give up social media accounts”.
“This Sunday, thinking of giving up my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube. Will keep you all posted,” Modi said in a tweet.
Modi has over 53 million followers on Twitter, making him the third most popular on the social media site with only US President Donald J. Trump (73 mn) and former US President Barack Obama (113 mn) ahead of him.
On Facebook however, Modi was the most followed leader globally with over 44 million followers, while his closest was Trump who had 27 million followers. Modi’s popularity on Facebook was such that even the US President that it was difficult to take on the Indian leader.
Trump had in February said, “And I congratulated Prime Minister Modi. I said, ‘But, you know, you have 1.5 billion people. I have 350 million. You have an advantage.”
Trump though maintained that he was number one on Facebook and Modi was second. “Prime Minister Modi is number two on Facebook, number two. Think of that. You know who the number one is? Trump. You believe that? Number one. I just found out,” Trump said during his commencement address at the Hope for Prisoners Graduation Ceremony in Las Vegas.
Apart from Twitter and Facebook, Modi has over 35 million followers on Instagram, and 4.5 million subscribers on Youtube.
Modi’s tweet came as a shock to many, as the Indian Prime Minister has on various occasions seen using social media heavily. Be it famous “Main bhi Chowkidar” campaign during the Lok Sabha elections last year, or be it roping in celebrities from different sections of society for vote campaign, Modi is seen using social media to his benefit.
Sources indicated that PM Modi might switch on to a new swadeshi social media platform and may also request his supporters to follow it. For quite sometime, Swadeshi Jagran Manch and RSS think tanks have been suggesting to launch an Indian social media platform like Facebook and YouTube. Industrialists like Anand Mahindra have also tweeted in the past about starting an Indian social media platform too. Yoga Guru Ramdev has also spoken on such lines advocating the creation of a domestic a social media app.
Some BJP leaders on condition of anonymity also dropped hints on the same lines suggesting that an internal message was doing the rounds that BJP karyakartas and followers should join NamoApp’s Swadeshi platform #MyNetwork and give vent to their voice, feelings and emotion. Will NamoApp’s #MyNetwork be the platform on which Indians can create their profiles and exchange messages and ideas? With iconic PM Modi’s endorsement, will he first personally migrate to an Indian social media platform to be followed by a multitude of his countrymen?
IANS
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