Narendra Modi loses nearly 3 lakh Twitter followers, Rahul Gandhi 17,000

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lost around 3,00,000 followers on micro-blogging site Twitter while Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost over 17,000, following Twitter’s removal of inactive and locked accounts.

The number of Modi followers strolled down from 43.4 million to 43.1 million.

Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter handle (@narendramodi) lost a total of 2,84,746 followers as per a twitter follower tracking site SocialBlade.com.

The Twitter handle of the Office of the Prime Minister of India (@PMOIndia) lost 140,635 followers.

Whereas, Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) have lost 17,503 followers while Congress leader Shashi Tharoor lost 1,51,509 followers.

The micro-blogging site is yet to issue and official statement regarding the matter.

Earlier this week, Twitter had announced that it will remove locked accounts.

The clean-up process even affected External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) as she lost 74,132 followers.

BJP President Amit Shah lost 33,363 followers, while Delhi Chief Minister was left poorer by 91,555 followers.

"We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation," Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Head, said earlier this week.