Indian Politician Arvind Kejriwal Wins TIME 100 Readers’ Poll
Indian politician Arvind Kejriwal has won the readers’ poll for the 2014 TIME 100, TIME’s annual list of people who influenced the world this past year for better or worse.
Celebrities like Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Rihanna ranked high as reader favorites, but the poll turned into a competition between two men competing in India’s ongoing elections.
Kejriwal, who leads the Aam Aadmi, or common man, party, received a total of 261,114 “yes” votes from readers; Kejriwal, a candidate for a Parliamentary seat, came to prominence as the leader of an anti-corruption movement in India. Narendra Modi, the controversial leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and frontrunner to become the country’s next Prime Minister, brought in 164,572 approving votes.
Readers could also weigh in on whether figures should not be included in the TIME 100. Modi received 166,260 “no” votes, outnumbering his total “yes” votes. The poll’s winner was decided by raw number of “yes” votes.
More than 3.2 million votes were cast in the poll. There were attempts to inflate the voting numbers, but only legitimate votes were tabulated for the final results. On Thursday, TIME will announce this year’s TIME 100 honorees, who are selected by the editors.
Rounding out the top ten finishers after Kejriwal and Modi were singer Katy Perry, singer Justin Bieber, actor Laverne Cox, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, singer Beyoncé, actor Jared Leto, actor Lupita Nyong’o, singer Lady Gaga and music duo Daft Punk.
Earlier this week, Cox and Bieber were battling for the poll’s top finisher. Cox, who appears in the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” took to Twitter to encourage her fans to vote.
