Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the first world leader to have over 100 million followers on Instagram. Officials confirmed the achievement on Thursday, noting that the Prime Minister has reached the nine-figure mark just over a decade after joining the platform in 2014.
The scale of Modi's social media presence now dwarfs that of his international contemporaries. To put the figures into perspective, his following is more than double that of US President Donald Trump, who sits in second place with 43.2 million followers. In fact, the combined follower count of the next five most-followed global leaders — including Indonesia's Prabowo Subianto, Brazil's Lula da Silva, and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan — still falls short of the Indian Prime Minister's individual total.
Domestically, the gap is even more pronounced. Modi remains significantly ahead of any other Indian political figure on the platform; his closest rival is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has around 16.1 million followers, followed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with roughly 12.6 million.
As per government officials, the sudden increase in followers is a result of the Prime Minister's popularity worldwide and his special appeal to the younger generation of tech-savvy people. Over the years, his Twitter handle has evolved from a typical political platform to one of the most interactive and popular online profiles in the international arena.
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