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From Google hangouts to WhatsApp messages, from Twitter to Facebook, India’s 2014 election campaign is modern, sassy and very expensive. India’s politicians are expected to spend somewhere around $5 billion, rivaling the US Presidential elections (the most costly state elections in the world with $7 billion spent in campaigning last year) and three times more than what they in the last general elections in spent in 2009, according to the initial findings of an election expenditure tracker by the Centre for Media Studies. So, what will Indian politicians be spending these billions on? A major part of this amount - 22-25% - will be spent on media campaigns says N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of CMS, who has been tracking election expenditure for many years. An Indian Express report says in 2009, political parties spent around $83 million on advertising campaigns. In 2014 the figure will be at least around $300 million. Millions are also being spent on digital marketing to reach almost 37% of the registered Indian voters who are online. “The Congress has started spending on digital, which it never did in 2009,” says Mahesh Murthy, founder of the digital marketing group Pinstorm who have been running trackers for leading Indian political parties. “The Bharatiya Janata Party is investing in digital listening or analyzing other people’s conversations and outbound advertisements. While the Aam Aadmi Party is more interested in listening and marketing through viral content.” An Indian Express report points out the Congress party has allocated $67 million for its mass media ads (television, print, radio, outdoor and digital) and around $17 million for on the ground campaigning. “New media is only effective in reaching voters,” says Rao. “It can’t motivate voters.” But that has not deterred Indian politicians from trying out this new medium. Technology company Google for e.g., have seen a huge uplift in political digital advertising spending this year, almost 10 to 20 times up from 2009. “Not surprising at all,” says Gaurav Kapur, Industry head, Google India. “Given the concentration of people who will vote and who are online it is given that political parties would want to interact with them.” At the opposite side of the political spectrum, there is also a newer, younger and socially charged India, which demands more from its lawmakers. The Indian election culture – which traditionally involved cash handouts and alcohol to buy votes, while not totally on its way out has seen significant transformation owing to them. “You are dealing with a new generation of 150 million voters who likes to see a sense of scale,” says Dilip Cherian, founding partner of Perfect Relations, a communications group and a political campaign adviser. “The quality of chairs that are being used at rallies, for eg. has gone up from 2009. The age of the nukkad (local) rallies are over.” Away from media campaigns, the rest of the amount will be spent on voter mobilizations, logistics etc. A significant amount for e.g. will be spent on hiring helicopters and jets for the travel of the star campaigners like Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi. For e.g. Span Air, a private chartered flight company, own five aircrafts and all five have already been booked by the Congress party till the end of the elections. The per hour cost of these aircrafts range between $1250- $3000. Even a very conservative estimate - five aircrafts for 15 days at an average cost of $1500 per hour for 8 hours a day – is a whopping $900,000. The estimated cost of the Indian elections will raise a few eyebrows no doubt. But taken in the context of rising inflation in the country and the epic scale of the world’s largest democratic exercise and the country’s GDP, experts say, it is not much. “I don’t think $5billion for 800 million people is expensive,” says Mohan Guruswamy, a Delhi-based political observer. “Democracy doesn’t come cheap.”