Narendra Modi has broken the 100 million followers mark on Instagram, making him the first world leader and politician to achieve the feat on the social media platform.
Prime Minister Modi joined Instagram in 2014. During the last ten years, his Instagram account has been steadily growing and is now one of the most popular political handles across the globe.
As per the publicly available information on Instagram, the Prime Minister’s followers are now leading the list of other world leaders.
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Global leaders trail behind
Amongst global political leaders, the second position is held by Donald Trump with 43.2 million followers. Other political leaders include Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto with 15 million followers, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with 14.4 million, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan with 11.6 million, and Argentina’s Javier Milei with 6.4 million.
Modi’s number of followers is more than the total number of followers of some of the above-mentioned leaders, giving an indication of the magnitude of Modi’s online presence.
Domestic political comparison
In India, the Prime Minister is also leading other political leaders in terms of the number of followers. Yogi Adityanath has 16.1 million followers on Instagram, while Rahul Gandhi has 12.6 million followers.
The Prime Minister’s posts tend to include updates from official events, overseas trips, outreach programs, cultural events and sometimes personal musings. Analysts have pointed out that the Prime Minister’s Instagram approach has been instrumental in his reaching out to a younger generation of supporters in India and elsewhere in the world.
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Digital outreach as political strategy
The achievement is a part of a larger trend in the world of politics, where politicians are increasingly turning to visual media platforms to connect with their citizens. The nature of Instagram, which is based on images and short videos, has made it possible for political messages to transcend the traditional press conference and speech.
Modi’s use of social media has been an integral part of his governance communication and outreach efforts since his first term as the Prime Minister of India. The 100 million mark is an important point in the relationship between politics and digital media.
