India polls: Will Rajinikanth return Narendra Modi’s friendly gesture?

Dubai: One tweet, 22 hours and 213,000 followers.

As Tamil superstar Rajinikanth joins twitter through digital celebrity network Fluence there’s a mad dash of fans and notables to follow him. Judging from the first day’s output it is nothing but phenomenal – much like his first entry in any of the box office hits where audience are expected to stand up on the seats and dance in joy welcoming his screen avatars. A single tweet from him and - at the time of typing this - he has already amassed 213 K followers in just about 22 hours.

One person who stands out in the whole stampede is of course, Narendra Modi. Within hours of Rajinikanth’s emergence on twitter, BJP’s Prime Minister candidate tweeted “NowFollowing @superstarrajini. Delighted to see the Superstar on Twitter. A warm welcome” with a picture of Modi and Rajinikath posing together.

Modi had met Rajinikanth at his Chennai residence early last month obviously seeking support in his PM bid, but Rajinikanth refused to be bowled over and stuck to his superstar credentials. At least outwardly. The southern stalwart chose not to extend any open endorsement to BJP or Modi and insisted it was only “a courtesy call”. Has something changed? Is there anything more to it? And more than anything else, will he return the courtesy? That is what everyone is eagerly waiting for now.

And for the fans of Rajinikanth one-liners:

Why is Rajinikanth not following a single person on twitter? Because he is the leader and not a follower!

And this fan puts it more bluntly: