PM Modi, Virat Kohli & Rahul Gandhi lead Twitter engagements in January

PM Modi, Virat Kohli & Rahul Gandhi lead Twitter engagements in January

Virat Kohli’s engagements overtake the Congress leader’s to occupy second position

PM Modi

Mumbai: Social media analytics platform Twitteet has released its latest analytics report of January 2021 based on Twitter engagement of key personalities. Prime minister Narendra Modi topped the overall Indian Twitter engagement rankings with a massive engagement crossing 80 lakh. He was followed by cricketer Virat Kohli and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the second and third spots with engagements of 26.2 lakh and 25.9 lakh respectively.

News Nation  anchor Deepak Chaurasia led the pack in the Journalists category, breaking into the overall top five by coming in fourth position with a whopping 23.9 lakh engagements during January. He was followed by India News deputy editor cum news anchor Sushant Sinha with an engagement of 11.3 lakh, and India TV’s Rajat Sharma in the second and third spots respectively in the Journalists category.

Among Indian politicians, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, home minister Amit Shah and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra were third, fourth and fifth in the 'Indian politicians engagement rankings'. Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav at sixth position with 10.8 lakh engagements and RJD’s Tejasvi Yadav at number ten were the only non-BJP politicians in the top ten, besides Rahul Gandhi.

The exciting India-Australia Test series drove engagement for cricket and cricketers. Virat Kohli’s engagement shot up to a whopping 26.2 lakh, coming second overall - only after PM Modi. His ranking was further spurred, no doubt, also by Anushka and Virat announcing the birth of their baby girl. Kohli was followed by Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar at second and third spots respectively.

Among sportspersons outside of cricket, Olympic medallist, boxer and Congress politician Vijender Singh topped with 5.31 lakh engagements. His support to the farmers’ protests helped boost his twitter engagements. A surprise entry was made by 88-year-old pistol shooter Dadi Chandro Tomar, better known as “Shooter dadi”. She shot up to the fifth position in the non-cricket sports category, leaving behind more renowned names such Geeta Phogat, Ritu Phogat and Bajrang Punia.

Bollywood stars saw their engagement rates slip this season with only Sonu Sood breaching an engagement of over 10 lakh with a rating of 14.2 lakh. “Sonu Sood’s humanitarian work during the pandemic continues to see huge  resonance on Twitter,” the report says. He is followed by Akshay Kumar and Anupam Kher, with Disha Patani and Sunny Leone being the only female actors in the top ten of the category.

The Business Leaders’ category (which includes Indian origin CEOs) saw a new winner emerge in the form of Sundar Pichai with an engagement of 4.38 lakh, beating perennial favourite Anand Mahindra to the top slot. The third slot was taken up by RPG Group’s Harsh Goenka.

The categories whose Twitter engagement have been analysed include politicians (party-wise), journalists, business leaders (founders and investors), sportspersons (cricket and other sports), movies stars (Bollywood and regional), authors, chefs, and comedians.

The following people had the highest Twitter engagements in the respective key categories, according to Twitteet:

1. Politicians – Narendra Modi – 80,29,733

2. Cricketer – Virat Kohli – 26,24,935

3. Journalist – Deepak Chaurasia -  23,91,309

4. Bollywood – Sonu Sood -  14,26,286

5. Business Head – Sundar Pichai - 4,38,704

6. Sports Star (non-cricket) – Boxer Vijender Singh -5,31,229

7. TV Star – Sidharth Shukla - 3,21,963

8. Regional Cinema Star – Mahesh Babu - 7,58,994

9. Founders – Cred’s Kunal Shah – 99,015

10. Comedians – Ashish Chanchlani – 5,82,661

11. RJs – Radio Mirchi’s Sayema – 2,97,896

 The firm said that for its methodology, the engagement is measured by the total number of retweets and likes, while comments are not considered. Only the engagement data of original tweets and tweet replies are taken, and the data for pure retweets is not considered.