NaMo loses 3 lakh followers, RaGa 17,000

​New Delhi: As Twitter began sanitising its platform by removing inactive and locked accounts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lost nearly 3,00,000 followers while Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost 17,000 followers. The number of Modi's followers went down to 43.1 million from 43.4 million.

According to SocialBlade.com that tracks the number of Twitter followers on a daily basis, Modi's personal Twitter handle (@narendramodi) lost 2,84,746 followers. The official handle (@PMOIndia) lost 140,635 followers. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) has lost 17,503 followers while Congress leader Shashi Tharoor lost 1,51,509 followers. The micro-blogging platform earlier this week announced it will remove locked accounts -- which are disabled owing to suspicious activity -- from follower counts across profiles globally.

Twitter claimed that this step is to improve and ensure the quality of the service so that everyone can trust their followers. Further, the company also said that the move to lock accounts have been initiated after finding sudden changes in the account activities. The clean-up will continue, Twitter added.