Bangalore: Who is the most celebrated twitterati politician in India? The man with a close-cropped white beard who often maintains a tranquil face, Narendra Modi has surpassed other tech-savvy politicians like Omar Abdullah and Shashi Tharoor in popularity in the Twitter world.

Narendra Modi is both accepted and rejected and loved and hated for his double identity; but his excellence in governance is beyond reproach. This 60-year-old Chief Minister of Gujarat is selected as the finalist in the fifth annual Masahable awards for the category of the "Must-Follow Politician on Social Media". Narendra Modi, who the United States refused to granted a visa, is the only non-American politician nominated for the award.

Masahable’s Must-Follow Politician on Social Media category is aimed to honor reader's choice for the politician who best uses the mainstream social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr etc. Modi is contesting against the world leaders such as American President Barack Obama who has over 11 million followers. Modi is very active on Twitter and updates his blog regularly, has 427,107 followers on the micro-blogging website, Twitter. The other contenders in the category include famous American politicians such as Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, Buddy Roemer, Herman Cain and Cory Booker. Although it’s not clear how many votes are casted in favor of Modi till now, voting will be open to all until December 16^th and the winners will be announced on December 19^th, 2011.

The annual awards is a community-nominated voting programme from Mashable to recognize companies, people and projects that could make some remarkable impacts in the digital world this year and it has 28 categories such as Best Social Network, Best New Gadget, Must-Follow Brand on Social Media, Most Social TV Show and many others.

Acknowledging his Mashable nomination, Modi tweeted, "thanks for your continued support on Mashable awards. Glad to see global recognition for our social media activities."

(With inputs from PTI)