Trending #LokSabhaElections2019, a tsunami of statements, counter-statements, news and views on Twitter unleashed a whopping 396 million tweets between January 1, 2019 and May 23. This accounted for a 600% growth from 2014, when the country last went through the world's largest elections.
Throughout this record period, Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained the status as the most mentioned political personality and BJP the most cited political party. Twitter was invariably one of the first online platforms where election news broke, triggering lakhs of replies, retweets and likes.
The tweets originated from multiple sources including candidates, political parties, citizens, social media influencers and the news media.
On the counting day alone, 3.2 million tweets were counted. A third of these tweets were recorded between 3 pm and 4 pm, at the same hour that the Prime Minister tweeted.
“The impact of #LokSabhaElections2019 was felt across the world. Conversations unfolded across the globe, with world leaders, celebrities and Indian diaspora engaging in dialogue about the new government,” said a statement by Twitter India.
While the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) members took 53% of the mentions on Twitter, @INCIndia and other handles of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) received 37% of the mentions. Besides Modi and Rahul Gandhi, the most mentioned were Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Gandhi, Smriti Irani, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Nitin Gadkari.
National security emerged as the most talked about election-related topic on Twitter. Among other hot topics were religion, jobs and employment, agriculture and demonetisation. English and Hindi did remain the dominant languages of conversations. But substantial number of Tweets were also observed in Tamil and Gujarati, informed Twitter India.
