Regional heroes shine on social media after Lok Sabha poll surprise

New Delhi,UPDATED: Jun 11, 2024 21:26 IST

Regional leaders have made big gains on social media after following their parties’ phenomenal showing in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, with some growing their follower bases manifold in just a week.

The Samajwadi Party, the Telugu Desam Party, The Janata Dal (United), the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), and the Jana Sena are among the regional parties that sprung a surprise on June 4. Some of them hold the key to the survival of the Narendra Modi government 3.0 after the Bharatiya Janata Party failed to notch up the magic number of 272. Their leaders' growing importance and influence are reflected very well on social media platforms.

An analysis by India Today shows N Chandrababu Naidu — the leader of the largest BJP ally with 16 Lok Sabha seats — was the biggest gainer on X (formerly Twitter) while LJP chief Chirag Paswan added the highest number of followers to his Instagram base.

X FOLLOWER GAINS

Naidu attracted more than 1 lakh followers on X within seven days of the announcement of the election results on June 4. SP president Akhilesh Yadav was in second place by gaining over 82,500 followers, followed by Jana Sena’s Pawan Kalyan (73,400), Chirag Paswan (61,440), and JD(U) boss Nitish Kumar (58,900).

The scale of growth becomes more evident when we compare the average number of daily followers gained in May to the average daily growth since June 4. For instance, Naidu gained an average of 15,382 followers per day between June 4 and June 10, compared to 146 daily followers last month. Akhilesh Yadav, whose party won 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh, upsetting the BJP applecart, added nearly 11,800 followers daily since June 4, compared to an average daily follower count of 2,860 in May. Similarly, Pawan Kalyan’s average daily growth for the week was almost 12 times higher than in May.

GROWTH IN INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS

Newly-appointed Union Food Processing Minister Chirag Paswan was the undisputed winner on Instagram. He had 5.95 lakh followers at the end of March, which stood at 29.6 lakh at the time of writing this. This number includes 18.6 lakh followers gained after the results.

Actor-politician Pawan Kalyan was the second biggest gainer on Instagram among his peers, with a growth of 2.3 lakh followers during the week, followed by Akhilesh Yadav (over 1 lakh), and N Chandrababu Naidu (over 48,600). Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar does not have an official presence on the platform.

MODI VS RAHUL

Among national leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained his dominance on X in absolute follower growth during the week. However, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi performed better when comparing his daily follower growth during the week to that of last month. While Gandhi added 28,607 users daily since June 4 against his May average of 8,202, PM Modi gained an average of 55,732 followers per day between June 4 and June 10, compared to his May number of 20,926.

On Instagram, Gandhi gained more than 1.9 lakh followers daily compared to PM Modi’s 1.4 lakh.

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