As Twitter began sanitising its platform by removing inactive and locked accounts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lost nearly 300,000 followers while Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi lost over 17,000 followers.
According to socialblade, a website that accounts for the number of Twitter followers on a daily basis, the number of Modi’s followers went down to 43.1 million from 43.4 million.
PM Modi’s personal Twitter handle (@narendramodi) lost 2,84,746 followers, while his official handle (@PMOIndia) lost 140,635 followers.
However, the micro-blogging platform was yet to confirm the statement.
Adding to the shock, Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) lost 17,503 followers while Congress leader Shashi Tharoor lost 1,51,509 followers.
Earlier this week, Twitter had announced it will remove locked accounts from the follower accounts across profiles globally as it adds to suspicious activities.
The move is likely to affect high-profile users the most.
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Head said,
“We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation.”
With this clean-up exercise, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) has lost 74,132 followers, while BJP President Amit Shah was left poorer by 33,363 followers and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal by 91,555 followers.
US President Donald Trump lost about 100,000 of his 53.4 million followers and former President Barack Obama lost about 400,000 from his 104 million.
The locked accounts are different from spam or bots and in most cases, these accounts were created by real people.
