Modi loses over 3 lakh Twitter followers after note ban

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter followers dipped temporarily by over 3 lakh after he announced withdrawal of old 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

But subsequently, the official twitter handle of the Prime Minister added over 4 lakh followers, thus making up for the losses.

According to statistics on Twitter Counter, Modi (@narendramodi), one of the most popular politicians on Twitter, had 24,120,043 followers on November 8, the day when he announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will cease to be legal.

The number of followers decreased by 313,312 the following day (November 09), reducing his followers to 23,806,731, as per data available on Twitter analytics platform Twitter Counter.

However, next day (November 10), his Twitter handle added 4,30,128 followers to take the follower base to 24,236,859.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed Indian on Twitter. In August, he had pipped Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan to take the numero uno position.

The number of followers of Modi's account (@narendramodi) consistently increased by about a million every two months in 2015.

It crossed the 15 million mark on September 22 last year, and touched 16 million on November 20. In 2016, the growth rate of Modi's Twitter followers slowed down, with about 5 million users being added in around eight months.

Active on Twitter since 2009, Modi is also the second most followed politician in the world, right after Barack Obama (@barackobama), as per Twitter.

Modi, who had used social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook extensively for his election campaigns, has continued to leverage the microblogging platform for reaching out to the public.

He has actively used Twitter for campaigns like #MakeInIndia, #SwachBharat, #MannKiBaat and #SelfieWithDaughter and has been encouraging citizens and Government officials to use social media to connect.