Narendra Modi starts following selected ones on Twitter, who are they?

By Japan K Pathak, Ahmedabad, 1 January 2012

Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi enjoys huge support base on Twitter. The figure of his followers is nearly four and half lakh on Twitter. However Modi himself was known for following none on Twitter.

Till Sunday evening Narendra Modi was following none on Twitter and the count of those whom Modi follows was zero, but by midnight he completed following as many as 173 people on twitter.

For many email inboxes, the New Year began with a mail from Twitter that read- ‘Narendra Modi is now following you on Twitter’. Notifications of such kind with different names may be a routine thing for those active on social media but, this indeed was a rare one! After all it was Narendra Modi, widely dubbed as the ‘King of Social Media’ who found their Twitter pages interesting enough for him to ‘follow’!

Modi’s sudden ‘following’ spree indicates that he is as much a top public figure as he is a people’s person! Apart from following his colleagues in the BJP, international leaders, eminent celebrities, Modi is also following (you heard right) his fans and well-wishers and here lies the crux of Modi’s following exercise.

Modi started by following his website account on Twitter NarendraModi_In, followed by other accounts like Sadbhavana-Guj, GujaratIndia, InfoGujarat, GujaratTourism, BJP_Gujarat. After following six in-house(govt/party operated) accounts on Twitter, the seventh twitter account Modi followed was DeshGujarat. After DeshGujarat, he followed SushmaSwarajBJP, DrRamansingh, Tarunvijay, Vinay Sahastrabuddhe, Poonam Mahajan and SmritiIrani.

Others whom Modi follows now are: BJP MLA G Kishan Reddy, BJP Karnataka, Sangh Pariwar, Sewa Bharti, Tamilnadu BJP, Vadodara MP Balu Shukla, Dinesh Dasa, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar, Virendra Sehwag, Chetan Bhagat, Akshay Kumar, Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister, United Nations, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Delhi based Pioneer daily’s journalist Kanchan Gupta, Ahmedabad based lawyer Devang Nanavati, Indian Express columnist Tavleen Singh, columnist Ashok Malik, YouTube PTI, Prabhu Chawla, S Gurumurthy, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Rajat Sharma, Organiser weekly, Rajesh Jain, Sucheta Dalal, offstumped, centerofright and number of other known/unknown right and patriotic twitter accounts. Modi may be courting China for investments in Gujarat but the Dalai Lama too figures in the following list. It is however the other part of the following that draws a fair degree of attention. Unlike the celebrities who only follow other celebrities, Modi has started a precedent of following ordinary fans and activists who are associated with him.

Modi following others means, he would see their tweets in one single list with constant updates. Also those whom now Modi follows can send direct message to Modi through Twitter.

Modi was in fact earlier following some people on Twitter, but later he unfollowed all, and therefore in recent time he was following none. His move to follow 173 chosen people today surprised many on Twitter. Some people on Twitter thanked Modi for following back. Some recalled that he used to follow the people before.

In recent time, Twitter has become a tool of spreading message, expressing opinion, and getting in touch with the people for Narendra Modi. His single-line tweet sometimes becomes full-scale story in newspaper next day, and many a times it becomes ‘breaking news’ in TV media in minutes.

Some of the instant reactions on Twitter

jkanthtl: Sir you following an inferior person like me. Unbelievable.

ShivsinghDesh: Hhahaha i am one of them…..

Rangats: Surprised to see majority of people who are being followed by Shri Narendra Modi are being followed by me too.

Amitpanchal: Jaydip Parikh is one of them..celebrity che !!

Bengali_21: I am jealous of those, whom Mr. Narendra Modi is following …. i know they are devoted fans of Namo, but I also inclde in that list…..

_Innovision: Narendra Modiji its an honor I will always cherish ! thankQ for making my new year begin with a wonderful gift from you !

Matsharma: Sir, plz follow me, it’ll be an honour

Garg09: What a great start of new year …. just checked Narendra Modi profile and observed that out of 173 people to whom he is following, 150 are my good friends.

Internet_hindus: Fantastic gift from Narendra Modi for the new calendar year by following a few internet Hindus.

jkanthtl: Narendra Modi followed common people like me. No VIP has done it before. He is real socialist

ravin1sky: It’s like modern Vikramaditya meeting everyone and knowing problems secretly. Jay ho Narendra Modi ki

Namoforpm: Once again Narendra Modi sows he is a leader, even if it is in ‘following’ people on twitter….really he is a CM …. Common Man

reachnilesh: Wow, he used to follow me earlier before he unfollowed all…have still preserved that mail…