Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains busy globetrotting, his popularity index doesn’t present an impressive picture. A recent survey conducted by Angus Reid Institute (ARI) found that 75 per cent of Canadians polled were unaware of him.
Embarrassingly, the current level of lack of familiarity with Modi is similar to that of a 2014 poll conducted by ARI, a Hindustan Times report said. Post the 2014 survey, Modi had visited Canada in 2015 and had a bilateral engagement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in New Delhi this February.
According to ARI’s executive director Shachi Kurl, the Canadian public was not interested only in Trudeau and his gaffes during his trip to India and they didn’t pay attention to Modi.
He also said, “Modi isn’t an English-speaking fixture in the Western media. Canadians recognise the relationship it has with India, via the diaspora, and through business ties, but Modi is not a big personality or celebrity in Canada the way he is at home.”
The same polling was done for other G7 leaders ahead of the meet at Charlevoix in Quebec province on Friday and Saturday.
Although many Indians tend to believe that Modi is popular as he has a large number of followers on social media. A 2017 research conducted by University of Michigan showed that it is only “a form of political spectacle and resonated on social media as shown by high re-tweeting of his sarcastically worded messages.”