His tweets may have irked some of his party men, but they have sure grabbed eyeballs.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor’s messages on micro-blogging site Twitter have been such hits that the latter wants to make him a case study of effective use of the new medium.
Tharoor has 6,00,000 foll-owers on Twitter. He’s the only politician in the world, outside the US, whose tweets are tracked by so many.
Twitter’s co-founder Bize Stone, is keen on meeting Tharoor, sources said. A top Twitter official, Pankaj Gupta, is scheduled to meet Tharoor soon to get his inputs on how public figures can use it to keep in touch with followers and get their grievances redressed.
Twitter has recommended Tharoor, along with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoumi of Dubai — both avid tweeters too — as ‘leaders to follow’.
Tharoor’s tweet during the government’s austerity drive — ‘travelling cattle class, in solidarity with all our holy cows’ — drew huge attention. So too when he questioned his own minis-try’s decision to tighten visa rules, triggering a debate of ‘liberality versus security’.