AAP's social media wave: With a million tweets in a month, Arvind Kejriwal high on Twitter meter

NEW DELHI: Social media had picked Arvind Kejriwal as the next leader in Delhi much before the assembly election results on Tuesday confirmed the AAP’s stunning influence in the national capital. In the last month alone, over a million tweets have been tagged with @ArvindKejriwal on it.

According to Bangalore based social media aggregator Simplify360, of the three chief ministerial candidates in the Delhi elections, Kejriwal was by far the most influential on social media channels they tracked in the last month with a share of 61%. BJP’s Kiran Bedi followed with 31% share while Congress’ Ajay Maken managed just 8%.

A video featuring Kejriwal by The Viral Fever (TVF), Barely speaking with Kejriwal had also begun to trend. The satire video shot on February 8 has already had over three lakh hits in under 12 hours.

The Viral Fever's founder and chief executive officer Arunabh Kumar said the video was made so that TVF could discuss the shortcomings and mistakes of their party in a cheeky way.

Its timing couldn't have been better. Kejriwal's sweeping victory in the national capital has helped it draw thousands of eyeballs.

Kumar said even Kejriwal's win was perhaps propelled by social media. “It is participative politics and every voter gets a chance to interact with parties on social media,” he said.

The Delhi assembly elections on February 7 kept Twitter abuzz with trends like #Delhi-Votes and #ExitPolls and #MufflermanReturns.

Kejriwal also emerged as the most prominent leader with 59% influence on social media. In the last month there were 1.04 million mentions for @ArvindKejriwal, 560,000 mentions for Kiran Bedi and just 56,000 for @ajaymaken, according to Simplify360.

Twitter India's head of news, politics and government, Raheel Khursheed said it was the most watched elections in India after the general elections in May 2014. “Twitter has reaffirmed its position as a social soundtrack of India as it played a key role in this election” he says.