Politicians and Twitter

WEB WONDERS


As Shashi Tharoor calls politician to board the Twitter bandwagon, we take a look at the politicians who are already tweeting

In all probability, it was Barack Obama. Before he walked into the White House, he showed the world how. And one of the hows was his sweeping campaigns in the cyber media, including the power of tweets. Obama's verified account on Twitter has 2,454,937 followers, much more than can perhaps gather at any one meet.
While the US president settled down in his office and people stopped being wowed by the great online phenomenon, came the Shashi Tharoor controversy. Two fateful words -- 'cattle class' -- hurled the Minister of State for External Affairs and MP from the Trivandrum constituency, Kerala into trouble, with accusations and counter-accusations coming from several quarters. That also showed how public the domain of networking sites, like Twitter, is and how it can lay bare a personality and give a peek into his or her life.
Despite the unplesantness of the incident, Tharoor, on Thursday, said that he would like more Indian politicians to use the platform of Twitter to connect to people. His only trepidation is that the unseemly incident that he was caught in might discourage others to join the portal.
We aren't sure how many will take Tharoor's advice, but we decided to take a look some of the politicians who are already tech-savvy and sending tweets across the web. What is interesting is that there are a few from namma Karnataka. Youth Congress president for Karnataka, and serving his third term in the State Legislature, Krishna Byre Gowda has a Twitter page with close to 300 followers, and when he is not around to tweet, his office staff take care to keep all of them informed. But you will be mistaken if you assume it is just the young who know how to work wit the web, and of course, make the web work for them.
Former chief minister of Karnataka, SM Krishna's, is there on Twitter too. He may not be very frequent, but he has over 5,000 followers tracking him on the site. If you want to find him, his user name is SMKrishnaCong. Captain Gopinath's Twitter page is interesting, but predictable, with the green kite (that he had used as his symbol) used as the background theme. Did you say you don't quite remember him? He was the Independent candidate in the recent elections, and although he lost, his campaign for bringing a change is still on and Twitter has regular updates.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, an Independent MP in Rajya Sabha, representing Karnataka and the Bangalore Urban district, is very active on the internet, with his website, and of course, tweets. Whether in Dharwad (as his recent tweet informs) or in namma Bengaluru, you will always know what he is up to.
One name that cannot be left out from any list in which he can possibly feature is Narendra Modi (BJP). This man may evoke mixed reactions from many, but one cannot deny this shrewd politician, who always arouses curiosity and has a strong base of loyalists, his charisma. With around 4,000 followers, his Twitter account is something to look out for.
Karnataka politician Rajeev Gowda, a member of the Congres and also a professor at IIMB, politicians like Suresh Kalmadi (Congress), VK Malhotra (BJP) and a few others have discovered the wonders of the web and the treats of tweeting. Like Tharoor, we hope that others board this bus soon.