“At the request of Modi ji, I created my Twitter account to keep my thoughts,” tweeted Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Minister of State for MSME, on June 3. Twitter is the primary tool for communication for more than 96 per cent of ministers in Modi 2.O.
Around 89 per cent of ministers have a presence on Facebook, and 43 per cent on Instagram.
An analysis of affidavits filed by these ministers during elections, and information available on their verified accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram showed that 56 of the 58 ministers in Modi 2.O use Twitter.
While 52 ministers have either a verified Facebook page or have mentioned the address of their page in the affidavit,more than half of them are yet to use Instagram. As of now, 25 have either mentioned an Instagram address in their affidavits or have a verified account.
Twitter
All the 25 Cabinet ministers (including the Prime Minister) have Twitter accounts. However, the Twitter handles of Arjun Munda and Pralhad Joshi are yet to be verified by Twitter.
S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister, the latest entrant into Twitter, started tweeting after becoming the Minister.
Though all the nine Ministers of State (independent charge) have Twitter accounts, the account of Santosh Gangwar is yet to be verified. None of these ministers has crossed a million mark in terms of the number of followers. Hardeep Singh Suri and Prahlad Singh Patel have highest number of tweets among these MoS with independent charge.
Of the 24 Ministers of State, 22 have indicated their account address in the affidavits and 15 are verified accounts. VK Singh and Anurag Singh Thakur have 1.61 million and 1.34 million followers, respectively. Babul Supriyo, Arjun Meghwal and Anurag Thakur are top tweeters.
As many as 24 Cabinet ministers have a verified Facebook page. However, Jaishankar is yet to get a verified Facebook page.
In the case of MoS (independent charge), eight ministers have Facebook pages. Kiren Rijiju and Mansukh Mandviya are the toppers in terms of FB likes. At least 20 of the 24 Ministers of State have either mentioned about their Facebook accounts in the affidavits or have verified accounts. VK Singh and Anurag Thakur have more than 1.8 million and 1.5 million likes for their pages, respectively.
Others
Of the 25 Instagram accounts, Cabinet ministers top the list with 16 accounts, followed by MoS (independent charge) two, and Ministers of State seven. With 22.8 million followers, Modi grabs the top slot on this platform also. Amit Shah comes a distant second with 1.4 million.
Of the 58 ministers, 15 have also mentioned about their personal websites in the affidavits. Ashwini Kumar Choubey has mentioned Wikipedia entry about him in the affidavit.
More than three-fourths of the ministers have given gmail in their affidavits. While Modi has given his mail id from his website, some also have given yahoo and rediffmail ids.
Only a few ministers have given details about their YouTube channel in the affidavits. Some have given details on other apps and social media platforms. Harshavardhan is on ‘Sharechat’ and mobile app. Anurag Thakur is on ‘Snapchat’.