Twitter has announced that during India’s Lok Sabha Elections 2019 it saw over 396 million tweets being made on the social media platform. It stated that this is nearly a 300 per cent growth from the country’s last elections, which took place in 2014. This number includes tweets made by candidates, political parties, citizens and news media from January 1 to May 23.
The company states that it saw over 3.2 million tweets being made on the counting day itself. Out of these, a third of the tweets were recorded between 3 PM to 4 PM after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared his win on the platform.
Though this election process was for the Indian Prime Minister, Twitter states its impact was felt across the world. The company states that conversations about the Indian elections were taking place globally with world leaders, celebrities and Indian diaspora engaging in dialogue about the new government.
Narendra Modi was the most mentioned figure during the entire course of this election process. Both Modi’s, BJP’s and NDA’s official Twitter handles constituted 53 per cent of all the mentions during the time. Whereas, Indian National Congress’s and UPA’s official handles took around 37 per cent of the mentions.
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Twitter states that from April 11 to May 19, national security emerged as the most talked about election-related topic on the platform. This was followed by other topics including religion, employment, agriculture and demonetisation.
The company stated that apart for the 300 per cent growth in conversations on the platform from the last elections. It also saw people discussing the topic in multiple Indian languages, not just English and Hindi. Showing the diversity of the people engaging in the conversation.
