Spam deluge hits voters in India

Indian voters are being spammed by email and text messages from rival political parties in the fiercely contested elections that began this week.

Ruling Hindu nationalist party the BJP and the opposition Congress are fighting the elections that will take place in several phases until almost the middle of May.

In the IT centres of Bangalore and Hyderabad - nicknamed Cyberabad by locals - voters have reported receiving floods of emails and text messages from the political parties.

This election marks the first in which political parties in India have been allowed to use advertising in their campaigns. Canvassing by text and email is one strand of their promotion.

One voter in Hyderabad told silicon.com that she had received several text messages to her mobile phone during the past week, especially from the Congress Party, and that she was "quite irritated" by them all.

She explained that the parties do deals with the mobile operators in India allowing them to send canvassing messages to all the subscribers of that operator.

Andy McCue reported from India