Hawan being performed outside Congress headquarters in Delhi

Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections, in which over 8,000 candidates were in the fray for 542 seats, will begin at 8.00 am Thursday and results are expected only by late evening due to tallying of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with EVM count for the first time.

An estimated 67.11 per cent of the 90.99 crore electors had cast their vote in the seven phase elections. This is the highest ever-voter turnout in Indian parliamentarian elections.