But it is not political parties or the main candidates in the world's biggest democracy that are embracing the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube to swell coffers and boost support.

While the ruling Congress and main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party stick to largely traditional campaigning for now, tech-savvy groups are targeting the growing - and potentially influential - middle classes on the World Wide Web.

'A lot of people have seen the change in the US since the elections and made them realise that they can actually do something,' said Shridhar Jagannathan, a 30-year-old copywriter involved in the non-partisan www.voteindia.in website.

'It was the literate middle class that brought the change. What happened in the US has inspired people in India to go out and make a difference.' India has some 714 million eligible voters, including 170 million under 35, but unlike in developed countries, it is the marginalised rural poor who vote in the biggest numbers, often along caste, regional or religious lines.

In contrast, many of the English-speaking middle and upper classes readily admit to having never voted, yet still complain loudly about standards of leadership and governance.

For Mr Jagannathan, campaigners can help improve standards by targeting the 60 per cent of Internet users who live in India's eight largest cities using cheap, easily-available technology.

Their site has a blog, an application on social networking site Orkut and a Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/voteindia), while users can get details on candidates and constituencies using search facilities, text and email. Facebook groups, MySpace and YouTube applications and regional language versions to sit alongside the existing Hindi and English sites are in the pipeline.

The site's creators say they were shocked at the lack of awareness among educated urban dwellers about the democratic process, despite India's diverse, vocal media and growing 24-hour news culture.

'We have actually seen statistics that people have won by margins of two to three percent, so every vote does count,' said software technician Nimish Inamdar, 24, another site volunteer. 'That's one of our messages. Our concern is that good governance should come in by increasing the number of votes and more importantly, the quality of votes.' -- AFP