NEW DELHI: Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken are different in many ways. One belongs to the old guard while the other is part of the party's youth brigade. While one is rooted in Rajasthan politics, the other is being groomed to take on a bigger role in national politics. But the two appear to have one thing in common - a thriving following in Turkey.Maken, the general secretary in charge of Congress' high profile communications cell, enjoys a healthy following on Facebook. He is among a handful of Indian politicians to have a verified Facebook page. Facebook verifies pages of important figures by contacting them and making sure that it is operated by them and not an imposter.Maken's verified Facebook page has 99,154 'likes', or virtual endorsements. But only a fraction of it - 3,045 likes, or 3.1% of total likes - is from India. Users from Turkey account for 33.9% while those from Russia (24.9%), Ukraine (12.5%) and the US (9.5%) account for the rest, according to analytics tool Socialbakers."Nobody has control over who clicks like on Shri Ajay Maken's Facebook page or for that matter anybody else's Facebook page," a spokesperson for Maken said.Maken is an exception among Indian politicians on Facebook to have such an eclectic global following. Others with verified pages - Narendra Modi and Akhilesh Yadav - both derive more than 90% of their Facebook following from India. Even those without verified pages, in whose case fans or those unrelated to the leaders might be operating the account, typically have nearly all of their following from India.These include Sonia Gandhi (86.5%), Rahul Gandhi (92.1%), Nitish Kumar (94.2%) and Mamata Banerjee (93.4%).Apart from Maken, another exception to this trend is Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh, who has 4,636 likes on an unverified page. More than 53% of his fans come from Turkey, even though most of his followers come from India.Maken's office did not respond to a request for comment. Responding to a text message Digvijaya Singh said, "I don't have a Facebook account."With Modi's success on social media, Indian politicians are increasingly under pressure to ramp up their social media presence. Many of them have taken to Facebook and Twitter to engage directly with people.An April 2013 study by the IRIS Knowledge Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India characterised 160 Lok Sabha constituencies of the total 543 as 'high-impact' with regard to social media. With a high-stakes election approaching, Indian politicians, who lack a culture of engaging as equals with their electorate and who are, with honourable exceptions, new to the digital world and its ethos, are trying hard to win online and faltering on occasion.Both BJP and Congress have recently held workshops for their cadre on how to promote their party and leaders on social media and tall leaders such as Modi and Rahul Gandhi have shared their wisdom. On Thursday, Congress will organise a national workshop on social media at Jawahar Bhawan in New Delhi. Maken will address the workshop.Large brands and celebrities have in the past been accused of manipulating their popularity on social media platforms by paying for followers. In a crucial election year, with the greater prominence parties are devoting to social media, Indian politicians seem to be warming up to the trick.Manipulating your following on Facebook or Twitter is cheap and simple. For $50 ( 3,150), you can get 10,000 Facebook likes. On numerous websites, including Freelancer.com, you can hire people who will get real, active Facebook users to like your page. The same goes for Twitter. On the website Fiverr.com, for instance, $50 will add 100,000 followers to your Twitter account. With a little bit of caution, it is possible to engineer followers on these platforms that won't show up as obvious manipulations on analytics tools. Some, evidently, did not exercise even elementary caution.