New entrants on political bloc most googled

First-time politicians are grabbing more eyeballs virtually than young Turks. Google Trends shows that apart from political bigwigs, like LK Advani and Sonia Gandhi, new entrants are topping search lists. Shashi Tharoor, Chiranjeevi and Sanjay Dutt are among the top 10 most-searched politicians in the latest update. Soubhik Mitra reports.

In the last week, more people have searched online for Sanjay Dutt in Pakistan than in India. He is also virtually more popular in Bhopal than in Mumbai.

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First-time politicians are grabbing more eyeballs virtually than young Turks. Google Trends shows that apart from political bigwigs, like L.K. Advani and Sonia Gandhi, new entrants are topping search lists. Shashi Tharoor, Chiranjeevi and Sanjay Dutt are among the top 10 most-searched politicians in the latest update.

Also on the list are Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Narendra Modi, and Varun Gandhi.

“It is interesting that the young generation is curious about people from other professions getting into politics,” said Ankur Goyal, product manager, Google Searches, that has about 3.5 crore users in India. “Most of our users are aged between 18 to 30 years.”

Newcomers have beaten seasoned politicians in their own cities and are neck-to-neck in other cities. For instance, former UN general secretary Shashi Tharoor, contesting from Thiruvanthapuram, scored in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.

In Hyderabad, Chiranjeevi’s popularity on the Internet has soared, closely rivaling Rahul Gandhi’s.