Instagram · May 15, 2026
Raghav Chadha Lost Millions of Instagram Followers, But 'Buying Bots' Claim Unverified
A person claims that Raghav Chadha has lost 2.3 million followers on Instagram and is buying bot followers, showing evidence of accounts with no profile pictures, zero posts, zero followers, and a future join date of April 2026, while also stating they were created two days ago.
What's right
What's wrong
Breakdown
Around the video's upload date of April 27, 2026, Raghav Chadha indeed experienced a significant drop in his Instagram followers, with reports indicating a loss of approximately 2.3 to 2.8 million followers following his defection from the AAP to the BJP. This was widely attributed to a "Gen Z unfollow campaign" as a reaction to his political move.
His follower count was reported in the range of 12.1 to 13.5 million around this time, making the claim of "12.3 million followers" plausible. However, the video's assertion that Chadha is "buying paid followers" is an unverified allegation made by the video creator, Dhruv Rathee.
While the video presented characteristics typical of bot accounts (no profile picture, zero posts, zero followers, following few accounts), and Instagram did conduct a "Great Purge of 2026" starting May 6, 2026, to remove millions of bot and inactive accounts across the platform, there is no independent evidence to confirm Chadha's direct involvement in purchasing followers. The presence of bot accounts on Instagram is a widespread issue, and their removal by Instagram does not automatically prove they were bought by a specific individual.
Furthermore, the claim that Chadha broke a "world record for the most unfollows on Instagram in 24 hours" is inaccurate. While his loss was substantial, other public figures have reportedly lost more followers in a single day.
Specific details about the "Date joined" and creation dates of individual accounts shown in the video could not be independently verified through Google Search. As of today, May 15, 2026, Raghav Chadha's follower count has continued to reflect the earlier drop, with HypeAuditor reporting 11,764,677 followers as of May 13, 2026.
Instagram's ongoing efforts to remove bot accounts mean that any previously purchased or naturally accumulated bot followers would likely have been removed by the platform. [1][2][3]