New Delhi:
As India inches closer towards general elections, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Aam Aadmi Party founder Arvind Kejriwal and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi have emerged as the most searched politicians online, Google said today.
According to Google Trends, on a scale of 0-100, Mr Modi scored 65 points, followed by Mr Kejriwal (52 points) and Mr Gandhi (41 points) for the month of February so far.
In January this year, Mr Kejriwal (72 points) was ahead of Mr Gandhi (64 points) and Mr Modi (56 points) in terms of search on Google, the world's largest search giant.
Google Trends records search queries containing keywords related to Mr Modi, Mr Kejriwal and Mr Gandhi and shows the data using graphs. The query numbers are plotted on a scale of 0-100.
"The world's largest democracy is all set for the 2014 General Elections for the 16th Lok Sabha and three leaders who are dominating the national political scenario and trending the most on online search are Modi, Gandhi and now Kejriwal," Google said in a release.
Interestingly, searches on Mr Modi for PM (Prime Minister) were "more than three times" compared to that of Rahul Gandhi for PM.
These elections are likely to be unique because it is no longer a clash between Mr Modi on the one hand and Mr Gandhi on the other. The dark horse - Mr Kejriwal - now features prominently as is evident by search queries, it added.
"Age is also revealing itself as a search trend. Interestingly, Gandhi's age is the most searched, that could be because he is constantly been projected as a youth leader," the US-based company said.
Google said Mr Gandhi remained the most searched among the youth brigade in Indian politics with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav securing the second spot, followed by Priyanka Vadra, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Naveen Jindal.
Some of the lesser known youth leaders, including Supriya Sule, Priya Dutt, Milind Deora and Dushyant Singh also found their place in the top 10 on Google Search, it added.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, BJP leader L K Advani, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav also received a significant number of search queries in the past three months, it added.