“New Superstar”: Shashi Tharoor On Priyanka Gandhi’s Twitter Follower Count

The new Twitter account of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra got over 1 lakh followers within a span of 10 hours today. In the first 15 minutes after the Congress announced her Twitter account at 11:49 am on Monday, her follower count had crossed 5,000 and 25,000 in the first hour.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was India’s most-followed politician on Twitter till 2013 until being overtaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, called Priyanka Gandhi “a new superstar on social media”.

“Given that Priyanka Gandhi has had only 12 hours on Twitter (so far) and she has got one lakh followers she seems to be on course to rival Rajnikanth. Looks like a new superstar on social media is born,” Mr Tharoor told news agency PTI.

“Smt Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is now on Twitter. You may follow her at @priyankagandhi,” a tweet from the Congress’ official Twitter handle said. Interestingly till late in the evening she didn’t post even a tweet.

Besides her husband Robert Vadra too went on to say Priyanka was a “perfect wife” and “the best mother” to their children and now the time had come to hand her to the people of India.

“There is a very vindictive and vicious political atmosphere… But I know, it’s her duty to serve the people and now we hand her to the people of India. Please keep her safe,” said Vadra in a social media post. Vadra is under a probe by the Enforcement Directorate and was questioned for three consecutive days last week in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering to purchase assets abroad.