Zee Media Bureau/Manisha Singh
The world`s largest democracy has voted to elect a new government at the Centre and now all eyes are on the exit polls to see whether India is poised for a regime change on May 16.
The last and eighth phase of polling took place on Monday in which voting for 41 seats took place. The whole elections were spread over 35 days.
Counting of votes in all the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies will be taken up on May 16. An average of 66 percent voters exercised their franchise in the last eight phases, as per estimates.
Overall, 9,667 candidates fought for the Lok Sabha seats in a poll that showed a high voter turnout among the 814 million electorate, the world`s biggest.
The 2014 General Elections will be remembered as India`s most bitterly fought. For the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the stakes are high. The BJP is hoping to come back to power after a decade banking on the huge anti-incumbency that the Congress is facing.
Most opinion polls put the BJP far ahead of the Congress and others although there is some lingering doubt if the BJP and its allies will bag the magic number of 272 to cross the half-way mark in the Lok Sabha.