Sonam Gupta — the name synonymous with betrayal that ruled social media through the year, especially post-demonetisation — made a surprise entry at No. 3 in the Google India list of top 10 trending personalities, the search engine giant said on Wednesday.
The fictitious name first appeared on a torn Rs10 note in August this year and was back on a new Rs2,000 note after demonetisation and went viral on various social media platforms with the tagline “Sonam Gupta Bewafa Hai (Sonam Gupta is unfaithful)”.
The list of top trending personalities was led by US President-elect Donald Trump, followed by Olympic medalist PV Sindhu at second spot.
Gymnast Dipa Karmakar took the fourth spot, followed by actor Disha Patani who recently made her Bollywood debut in a biopic on Indian cricketing star MS Dhoni, at fifth place.
Indian female wrestler and Olympic champion Sakshi Malik also featured among the top 10 trending personalities on Google.
Rio Olympic Games 2016 emerged as the top trending search query among Google users, followed by the augmented-reality (AR) game Pokemon Go.
Among top trending news events, Rio Olympics 2016 again topped the charts, followed by the US elections and Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) at the second and third spot, respectively.
The 7th Pay commission, demonetisation and the strategic surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the line of Control also generated a great deal of search curiosity among Indian users. Actor Salman Khan’s blockbuster film Sultan emerged as top trending movie, followed by Rajinikanth’s blockbuster film Kabali.
Shahid Kapoor starrer Udta Punjab, Akshay Kumar’s Airlift; and Ranbir, Aishwarya Rai and Anushka Sharma-starrer Ae Dil Hai Mushkil too made it to the top five list, Google said.
After making her first appearance in August on the Rs10 note, Sonam Gupta appeared to have been forgotten.
But after the scrapping of high-value notes, Sonam Gupta suddenly returned to public eye again. As people struggled to get their Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes exchanged, an image circulated on social media where a new Rs2,000 note had the same words, “Sonam Gupta Bewafa Hai”, written on it.