Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the most followed active politician on Twitter. The micro-blogging platform permanently suspended the account of US President Donald Trump, after pro-Trump supporters stomped on Capitol Hill on Friday. President Trump had 88.7 million followers and PM Modi has 64.7 million followers.
The most followed politician on Twitter, however, remains former US President Barack Obama with 127.9 million followers.
Trump, a real estate tycoon and businessman started the account in May 2009. rump's most popular tweet has been the one where he announced that himself and First Lady Melania Trump had contracted the coronavirus. The tweet got 1.8 million likes and nearly 400,000 retweets.
In December 2020, he tweeted, “Great. Most corrupt election in history, by far. We won!!!” Twitter labelled the tweet to be a disputed claim. After an angry mob of his supporters vandalised Capitol Hill, he condoned the act and tweeted, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever.”
When Trump egged on followers to overturn election results in a video message, Twitter had demanded that Trump delete the tweet and two others-- one which called the elections fraudulent and the other tweet, where he expressed love for insurgents.
“After a close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in a tweet.
After Trump's Twitter account was suspended. His son, Donald Trump Jr tweeted, “Free speech is dead and controlled by leftist overlords.” “Silencing speech is dangerous. It’s un-American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years. We cannot let them silence 75M Americans. This isn’t the CCP,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote from his personal account.
US President-elect Joe Biden has 23.3 million followers. India Home Minister Amit Shah has 24.2 million followers and Delhi Pm Arvind Kejriwal has 21.2 million followers.
