Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joins Twitter, gets 1.26 lakh followers in hours

New Delhi: On the day of her maiden visit to Uttar Pradesh as an AICC general secretary, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday joined microblogging website Twitter and garnered a massive response, with her handle, @priyankagandhi, attracting 1.26 lakh followers on the social media platform within 10 hours.

“Smt Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is now on Twitter. You may follow her at @priyankagandhi,” a tweet from the Congress' official Twitter handle said.

The leader didn't post a tweet but followed seven people, including her brother and party chief Rahul Gandhi as well as party leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Ashok Gehlot  Randeep Singh Surjewala, Ahmed Patel and the Congress's official account. The Gandhi family scion was also trending on Twitter for the most part of the day.

Over 45,000 people followed her within hours of her joining the microblogging site.   Priyanka Gandhi (47) and Scindia (48) took charge as AICC general secretary UP east and UP west respectively last week. The Congress seems to have learnt its lessons from 2014 and has been scaling up its operations on social media platforms to challenge the BJP on a front which has been the saffron party's forte.

Mr Gandhi has also been using Twitter for his attacks on the government and analysts credit his aggressive social media campaign for the turnaround of his image among the people.