Narendra Modi's Twitter following grows by 52% to 37.5 million, Virat Kohli's 61% in 2017

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to be the most followed Indian on Twitter even as the growth in his follower base at 52 percent was lower than that of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, according to the microblogging site. As per a Twitter report capturing trends in 2017, Modi saw his follower base increasing by 52 percent to 37.5 million (as of 4 December), from 24.6 million in 2016. However, Kohli saw his followers grow by 61 percent during the same period although on a smaller base. [caption id=“attachment_4235245” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AP[/caption] The cricketer is ending the year with 20.8 million followers, as against 12.9 million last year. Cricket legend, Sachin Tendulkar also saw a growth of 56 percent in his follower base on Twitter this year. This is the first time ever, Kohli and Tendulkar made it to the list of top 10 most followed Indian accounts, Twitter said. The list was dominated by Bollywood actors with Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan. Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan saw their fan base on Twitter grow at 40 percent each. However, Shah Rukh – with 30.9 million followers – was ahead of Salman who had 28.5 million followers. The data showed that the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Final clash between India and Pakistan was the most tweeted about ODI ever with 1.8 million tweets. India’s biggest tax reform, GST, also made it to the list of top trending hastags due to the magnitude of conversations it generated on the platform, Twitter said. Besides, the Supreme Court decision on the controversial Triple Talaq issue made ‘#TripleTalaq’ trend on Twitter on 22 August, with more than 350,000 tweets.