In 2017, PM Modi’s Twitter following rose 51%

In the one year since he became the most followed Indian on Twitter, PM Narendra Modi has garnered 37.5 million followers, a leap of 51%, while GST, ‘Mann Ki Baat’, the presidential elections and the first anniversary of demonetisation became top topics and hashtags.

Talking about the top trends and topics of conversation in 2017, Twitter India country director Taranjeet Singh, said, “While the PM retained the number one position, the introduction of cricket stars Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli in the top 10 list was notable.”

Interestingly, the two Twitter celebs who exited the list were Priyanka Chopra and A R Rahman. Akshay Kumar, with a surge in followers, managed to surpass Aamir Khan in 2017.


South Indian movies held attention, and Suriya Sivakumar’s tweet unveiling the second look of his Tamil film ‘Thaana Serndha Kootam’, or #TSK, was the most retweeted tweet of 2017. “In fact, South Indian hashtags like the movie ‘Mersel’ and ‘Baahubali 2’ trended pan-India,” Singh said. Interestingly, #Mersel generated 1.7 million tweets in three days, making it the top hashtag trend of the year.

Another case in point was the national debate over the Tamil sport Jallikattu, which trended on Twitter.

In entertainment, top trending topics also included ‘Padmavati’, which was at the centre of lakhs of conversations on freedom of speech and democracy.

The Supreme Court judgment on triple talaq was one of the most debated topics on Twitter this year. The hashtag #TripleTalaq trended on August 22, peaking with more than 3,50,000 tweets.

Other conversations that took the Twitterati by storm were the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), as well as the arrest of Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. The first anniversary of notebandi — which had trended last year — saw the measure trend this year as well.