With 23.8 million followers, Modi is the most followed Indian on Twitter, a little ahead of actor Amitabh Bachchan, who has 23.3 million followers. This dip is abnormal as Modi’s following has been constantly increasing.
In November itself, Modi’s followers on Twitter have increased by around 25,000 every day. On 8 November, the day of the announcement, the increase was even higher – close to 50,000. But Modi’s announcement on the evening of 8 November that the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will now be illegal tender, seems to have turned the tide.
Twitter graph which showed a constant increase since September, hasthis sudden dip on 9 November and the people attribute the same to the new currency and old currency issue.
Normally, the only time such sudden fall in followers takes place is when Twitter removes fake Twitter handles. But that should have led to a decrease in the number of followers for other political leaders as well. That hasn’t been the case. For instance, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s followers and those of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi have increased in the past couple of days.
If the dip in followers is indeed linked to the new demonetisation policy, it is a worrying sign for the BJP.It would be safe to assume that the backlash to the policy outside the virtual world would be much greater.
A Twitter spokesperson responded to the media stories and said that the reduction of followers was due to spam accounts being deleted. But some others opined that it was due to currency issue.
