Twitter is a useful tool for predicting election outcomes, effectively complementing traditional opinion
polling. This study undertakes a volume, sentiment and engagement analysis for predicting the
popularity of Prime Ministerial candidates on Twitter as a run-up to the Indian Elections 2014. The
results from a survey of 2,37,639 pre-poll tweets finds tweet volume as a significant predictor of
candidate vote share, and volume and sentiments as predictors for candidate engagement levels.
Higher engagement rates evolve from the horizontality of conversations about the candidate, therefore
indicating a high degree of interactivity, but do not translate into a higher vote share.