Do we really have a Modi wave one way or the other? Here is where we find out.

10.36 pm: NDTV gives BJP 279 seats on its own, 103 for Congress

The final seat projection from NDTV is for India's largest state - Uttar Pradesh, and here there seems to be a massive Modi wave. NDTV has given the party a whopping 56 seats in the state - a range that could go all the way up to 61. This would be the best performance by the party since 1998, when it won 57 seats.

This projection takes the final NDA tally up to 279 seats. The Congress, which is expected to only win 4 seats in the state will get 103 seats together with its allies.

In UP, the Samajwadi Party will come in second with 12 seats, while the BSP will win 8.

10. 18 pm: In Bihar, a wipeout for Nitish

More bad news for Nitish Kumar courtesy NDTV - Hansa. The beleagured Chief Minister who gambled on splitting from the NDA is only projected to win a paltry 4 seats in the state.

The BJP is of course well ahead with 22 seats, although the Congress -RJD combine is not performing too badly either, with the poll predicting that it will win 14 seats.

A quick poll comparison:

Times Now gave the BJP 28 seats, while the JDU is only winning 10, while the Congress-RJD combine looks as though it is a big flop.

The ABP Nielsen poll for Bihar predicted 19 seats for the BJP, LJP 2, RJD 10, Congress 4 and JD(U) 5.

CNN-IBN CSDS Lokniti gave BJP 21-27 seats, Congress and RJD 11-15 and the JD(U) 2-4.

10.03 pm: BJP trump AAP in Delhi but Cong on top in Punjab

NDTV-Hansa has confirmed the predictions by other exit polls as far as Delhi is concerned. The BJP will win 5 seats in the state, says the survey while AAP will win 2. Nothing for the Congress here, although the panelists have said that it is likely that Kapil Sibal may just scrape by to hold on to his seat of Chandni Chowk.

Meanwhile in Punjab good news for the Congress, with the party trumping the BJP-SAD combination which is only expected to win 5. AAP on the other hand, is likely to win 2 seats, garnering 25 percent of the vote. Congress is winning 39 percent of the vote in the urban areas, while SAD+BJP will win 35 percent of the vote in rural areas.

The fact that Congress would perform badly was a foregone conclusion. A prepoll survey by CSDS-Lokniti estimated that the party would only be able to win around 22 percent of the total voteshare. However the post poll results project an even worse result – Congress is set to win just 7 percent of the voteshare. Contrast this with its performance in 2009, and you have a very sorry story indeed.

The real story in Delhi however, is the BJP performance and the fact that it has left even AAP in the dust,

One possible reason for clear leap ahead is the fact that the Delhi voter is looking at a national picture and not a state level one. Pre poll surveys that came out ahead of even the Delhi assembly elections, indicated that while most people wanted an AAP led local government, they were in favour of a BJP led national government.

However, as much as the AAP would have liked to believe otherwise, the fact that the party chose to resign from government in just 49 days has also hurt them in the city that first gave them a vote of confidence.

According to the CSDS-Lokniti survey, more than 60 percent of those polled, said they believed that by resigning from the Delhi government in just 49 days, Arvind Kejriwal betrayed the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party.

10.00 pm: BJP set to dominate Modi's Gujarat, says NDTV

No big surprises in Gujarat, given that this is where the Modi wave all began. The NDTV tracker gives the BJP 22 seats and the Congress just 4.

9.48 pm: Mamata to win big in West Bengal

Mamata Banerjee is set to win big in West Bengal says NDTV, with the exit polls giving the TMC 30 seats in the state. This is more or less in line with CNN-IBN that gave the party between 25 - 31 seats. The Left on the other hand is reduced to 7 seats.

Times Now on the other hand gave TMC 20 seats, and the Left 15. Will the truth be somewhere between all these figures or something completely different?

We await Friday with interest.

9.30 pm: NDTV gives Karnataka to BJP

NDTV-Hansa has given the BJP 16 seats in Karnataka, a state that the Congress was widely expecting to win. The survey has given the Congress 10 seats, and the JDS 2.

This, contrary to Congress expectations however, is largely in line with other surveys. The ABP news survey also predicted very optimistic numbers for the BJP in Karnataka. The survey predicts that the BJP will win 16 seats in the state while the Congress will win just 8 seats despite its thumping victory in the recent assembly polls. The JD(S) will win just 4 seats, the survey predicted.

According to Times Now, the BJP is set to win 18 seats in the state, just one short of what it won in 2009. The Congress was projected to win 9 seats.

CNN-IBN on the other hand, gave Congress 12 - 16 seats, and the BJP 10-14 seats. This seems to be an inverse prediction to the NDTV prediction.

9.23 pm: Naveen Patnaik will win 13 seats in Odisha, says NDTV

Some decent news for Naveen patnaik in Odisha, whose own internal survey has seen his party performing dismally in the upcoming polls.

According to an intelligence report commissioned by Naveen Patnaik himself (a copy of which is with Firstpost), the BJD is set win just 6 out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha and 77 (+/-3) in the assembly, just marginally above the magic number of 74 - the Congress is projected to win 35 seats and the BJP 23.

However NDTV has given the party 13 seats in the state. Who will prove right in the end? Patnaik will surely pin his hopes on the media exit polls.

9.13 pm: Major Maharashtra wipeout - end of the road for Congress

Terrible news for the Congress in Maharashtra yet again. Even the NDTV-Hansa poll says that the party is set to be completely wiped out in the state.

The projections for Maharashtra give 34 seats to the BJP - a number which could even rise to 38. Congress on the other hand is set to win just 13 seats. And in somewhat of a surprise the MNS has been given one seat. This is the first exit poll to give a single seat to the party.

CNN-IBN - CSDS Lokniti exit polls were on similar lines. It gave 33-37 seats to the BJP alliance, and said that the Congres + NCP was only set to win between 11--15 seats.

Earlier, the Maharashtra Congress told Firstpost that they refused to accept the previous exit poll findings.

"We don't believe these figures. We strongly feel that the Congress-NCP alliance will repeat the 2009 Lok Sabah election performance and will win around 25 seats," Manikrao Thakare, Maharashtra congress president told Firstpost reporter Vishwas Waghmode.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had won 17 and NCP 8 seats in the state. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, Maharashtra is considered one of the key states, after Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats.

9.08 pm: AIADMK set to sweep Tamil Nadu with 32 seats

Amma is all set to sail to victory in Tamil Nadu, more or less ensuring that she gets to play a central role in the formation of the next government.

The NDTV-Hansa poll has predicted that she will win a massive 32 seats in the state, decimating the DMK (5 seats), BJP (2 seats) and Congress (zero seats).

The BJP which has clearly already foreseen this, has already made overtures towards the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and she has also graciously replied that she would like to work with her 'friend' Modi.

Gone are the talks of Tamil Nadu development model vs Gujarat development model. In this post poll - pre alliance scenario, we are all good friends!

9.00 pm: Bihar final polling won't change final outcome, says CNN-IBN

The CNN-IBN poll which was updated to reflect the final phase of polling, has not seen any major change in its predictions so far. The poll gave BJP-LJP an unchanged 43 percent of the voteshare, 30 percent for Congress-RJD (down one percent) and 15 percent for the JDU (up 2 percent). This however will not change the projected seatshare.

8.37 pm: BJP set to sweep Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, MP

The NDTV poll survey has said that Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will all easily go to the BJP. The party is expected to win 9 of Chhattishgarh's 11 seats, 21 of Rajasthan's 25 seats and 24 of Madhya Pradesh's 29 seats.

Congress on the other hand is a woeful second, garnering just 2 seats in Chhattisgarh, 3 seats in Rajasthan and 5 seats in Madhya Pradesh.

This is more or less in line with what other exit polls have been saying, apart from Times Now -ORG which shockingly predicted a win for Congress in Rajasthan.

8.24 pm: TRS to win Telangana, says NDTV

As for Telangana, the TRS will take the spoils here, says the NDTV polls. It gives the TRS 11 seats, Congress 3, TDP-BJP 2 and Others 1.

So how does this compare to the other exit polls?

Times Now -ORG said TRS would get 9 seats, Congress 4 and the Left and BJP 2 apiece. CNN-IBN - CSDS said TRS would get 8-12 seats, Congress 3-5 and BJP + TDP 2-4.

8.15 pm: neck and neck race in Seemandhra between Jagan, TDP

Seemandhra, according to NDTV is going to be a very close race between Jagan Reddy's YSR Congress and the TDP-BJP alliance, with both parties expected to garner 45 percent of the vote each.

This has translated into seat share predictions of 13 for the TDP and 12 for the YSR Congress. The Congress, which has traditionally dominated the polls in this state are completely wiped out, getting absolutely no seats at all.

This is more or less in line with what CNN-IBN/Lokniti predicted on 12 May. That survey gave YSR Congress and BJP + TDP both between 11 - 15 seats.

Meanwhile according to the Times Now Exit Poll, out of the 25 Seemandhra Lok Sabha seats, BJP-TDP would get 17 seats, YSR Congress 8 and Congress zero.

According to panelist and Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta, this has been the result of 'absolute stupidity' on the part of the Congress party. Other reasons for this Congress fiasco given by the panel include the 'mishandling' of Jaganmohan Reddy and the botched bifurcation of Telangana.

NDTV has also done a separate voteshare survey for the Andhra assembly elections, giving the YSR Congress a slim lead ahead of the TDP.

8.00 pm: Updated CNN-IBN figures show slight increase for NDA

The updated CSDS-Lokniti exit polls by CNN-IBN which have been recalculated to account for the constituencies that went to polls in the last phase, are showing very little change from the numbers that were announced by the channel on Monday.

The vote shares of NDA and SP have moved by just one percent each and the seat share remains same as predicted earlier:

The revised figures indicate that the BJP is set to grab 39 percent of Uttar Pradesh' votes, as opposed to the 40 percent projected a day back. The SP's vote-share has risen by a slim one percent to 25 percent.

So what this confirms, is that Modi's man Amit Shah has done his job. Uttar Pradesh is set for a BJP sweep. As noted by Firstpost editor Dhiraj Nayyar earlier, the Hindi heartland has delivered for Modi.

7.45 pm: RSS internal survey gives NDA 259 seats

All the exit polls commissioned by media houses are predicting an easy majority for the BJP led NDA and the party has gone on record saying that even these estimates are too modest. BJP leader Amit Shah for instance, today predicted that the BJP would get over 272 seats on its own, adding that the NDA would top 300 seats.

However it turns out that an internal RSS survey is much more modest in its estimate.

According to this Rediff report that claims to have access to the internal survey, the RSS says that the NDA will win 259 seats, and the BJP will win 226 seats on its own.

The RSS survey says that the BJP will win 45 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 22 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 18 in Maharashtra.

Read the entire Rediff report here

5.00 pm: NDTV - Hansa to add to exit poll fever, how will numbers change?

It may come two days later, but NDTV-Hansa is also going to add their poll projections to the crush of exit poll results that are already in the public domain.

The question is, will the numbers wildly differ from what we have seen so far, and will it confirm the numbers that it forecast in its pre poll survey?

The survey, which was released last month, was the first to predict that the BJP-led NDA would get 275 seats in the Lok Sabha. The poll also said that BJP would get 226 seats on its own, which would mark the party's best ever performance in the polls.

The Congress tally on the other hand was expected to dip below 100 for the first time in the history of the party. The party was projected to win a paltry 92 seats on its own. The UPA on the other hand, was expected to win 111 seats.

The exit poll results that have been released thus far have more or less agreed with these numbers, with the only change being that the NDA is now projected to win significantly more seats. The poll results so far can be seen in the table below.

The CNN-IBN Lokniti survey is also set to update its numbers tonight. So will we see a significant change in overall tally in this survey as well?

-- end of updates for 12 May --

11.15 pm: Exit polls agree - BJP, NDA will form next govt

And that's a wrap for tonight as far as the dress rehearsals are concerned. Now we can only await the real performance on Friday, when counting takes place.

So to quickly recap, here are the final projections by the three poll surveys that we have been tracking tonight.

CNN-IBN Lokniti and ABP-Nielsen seem to agree on the final tally, with both projecting an upper limit of around 281 seats for the BJP led NDA. The Times Now - ORG poll gives a much more modest outcome for the alliance, saying that it will win 249 seats, which is 23 seats short of a majority.

Even with the Congress/UPA these numbers differ. CNN-IBN-Lokniti has said that UPA will win 92-102 and the Congress 72 - 82. ABP Nielsen has again concurred, predicting 97 seats which is smack in the middle of the range provided by CNN-IBN/Lokniti. Times Now has given the UPA 148 seats.

The Congress has predictably rejected the findings across the board. Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar rejected the CNN-IBN exit polls and said that he is willing to wait for real results. "In 2009, channels predicted big win for NDA. That was not the case," he said.

On ABP News, the party's Sanjay Jha completely dismissed that exit polls altogether. He said, "We are starting a new politics. We have contestants like you and me. We cannot judge it with the numbers. To expect scientific accuracy from these polls is unfair."

Criticising Modi he said, "If it was possible for Modi he would have sworn himself in as PM."

Retorting to Jha's comments Meenaikshi Lekhi of the BJP said, "The numbers are never exact, but it shows a trend. During this time there should be some introspection, which the Congress is not doing.

And what of the AAP story? The party has only been projected to win 4 seats in the polls, according to ABP-Nielsen.

Aam Aadmi Party' Yogendra Yadav said that he did not reject the CNN-IBN predictions, but said that his party may do a little better than projected. "People are looking for a change. And BJP and Mr Modi are promising to provide that," Yadav told CNN-IBN.

The AAP leader said that Modi's 'manufactured image' worked brilliantly. "My concern is like Western countries, in India too, the 'projected image' may become the big issue", he said.

Saurabh Bhardwaj of the AAP did not seem disappointed at all. On ABP news he said, "We are starting a new kind of politics. We have contenstants like you and me. We cannot judge this movement with the numbers."

11.00 pm: Will Narendra Modi worsen communalism as the next PM?

Given that Narendra Modi looks like he is all but confirmed as the next Prime Minister of India, the obvious question is of course, how this will impact the perceptions of India's minorities.

Dipanker Gupta told CNN-IBN that minorities are not helpless anymore, and therefore they did not have to fear riots in quite the same way.

"They were supine earlier. It is now no longer easy to kill riots. Fewer and fewer minorities are helpless," he said.

"If BJP is in power, and they see no advantage in a riot. Why should there be a riot?," Gupta asked, adding that riots don't happen because there is anger on the streets. "Riots are engineered," he said.

Sandeep Shastri noted that the minority community throughout the country has not favoured the BJP. "As the world becomes more globalised, it also becomes more marginalised," he said.

However, Gupta said that more minority may have voted for the BJP than they have in the past because of the image that the BJP government projected in this year's polls.

10. 28 pm: Was it Modi wave or money power that is pushing the BJP ahead?

While the Modi wave seems to have swept across the country, all the opposition parties and BJP's critics have pointed out that the party has used unprecedented amounts of money for campaigning.

Denying such allegations, Sudhanshu Trivedi told ABP news, "When the people chooses a party or a leader they look at three things policy, intentions and leadership. Those who have been corrupt all their lives, how can they accuse the BJP of such things?"

Countering Trivedi's argument Shahzad Poonawalla said, "If Modi wave was there, then why did he go for all the safe seats like Vadodara and Varanasi? He is losing from Varanasi."

When asked what his headline would be if Modi comes to power, Girija Shankar, Editor, Janamitra said, "Modi, Modi Modi will be the headline."

"We have to accept the powers going against Modi couldn't stop him. Also the secular powers could not show their strength," he said.

10.00 pm: Maharashtra Congress unit refuses to accept exit polls

The Maharashtra Pradesh Congess Committee (MPCC) has refused to accept exit poll figures which shows that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance will only win around 15 of 48 the Lok Sabha seats in the state.

"We don't believe these figures. We strongly feel that the Congress-NCP alliance will repeat the 2009 Lok Sabah election performance and will win around 25 seats," Manikrao Thakare, Maharashtra congress president told Firstpost reporter Vishwas Waghmode.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had won 17 and NCP 8 seats in the state. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, Maharashtra is considered one of the key states, after Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats.

He also claimed that the state government ruled by Congress and NCP combine has done lot of development work in Maharashtra. "It was also predicted in 2004 and 2009 that the anti-incumbency factor will go against us. But the people of Maharashtra stood behind the Congress and its ideology. The state government ruled by the Congress and NCP has done lot of development work in the state. We are of the opinion that the Congress and NCP will do a better job than shown in the exit polls," Thakare said.

9.09 pm: CNN-IBN Lokniti gives NDA 270 - 282 seats

CNN-IBN has given the NDA 270 - 282 seats, the BJP 230 - 242, UPA 92-102 and Congress 72 - 82. This is the worst ever performance by the Congress party in this election.

CSDS - Lokniti has said that the margin of error could be around 3 percent.

Professor Sandeep Shastri speaking on an analytical panel said that while the numbers pointed to a upsurge for the BJP, it was also indicative of an anti-Congress wave.

9.00 pm: ABP News predicts 281 seats for NDA

The second overall tally has come from ABP-Nielsen, which has given 281 seats to the NDA and just 97 for UPA. AAP has got 4 seats, while others (which will translate to the Third Front in this case) will win 161 seats.

Just to contrast this with Times Now, the NDA is set to win 249 seats, while the UPA is set to win 148. This, needless to say, is a starkly different picture to what we have been seeing in the other exit polls by IBN-CSDS Lokniti and ABP-Nielsen.

8.41 pm: BJP set to win big in Maharashtra, says IBN-Lokniti poll

Consistent with the projections made after the earlier pre-poll surveys conducted by Lokniti CSDS-IBN,the agency's exit-poll for Maharashtra involving a sample size of 1,798 voters, shows the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-RPI combine winning a 44 percent share of votes, up from 37.8 percent in the 2009 election. The Congress-NCP is a distant second with 34 percent of the voteshare.

This translates to between 33-37 seats for the BJP alliance, while the Congress is set to win between 11--15 seats.

The Congress-NCP had been ahead by only a whisker in 2009 -- the gap between the top two combines has widened considerably now, arguably due to the Modi factor in one of the country's fastes urbanising states.

AAP appears to have become a non-entity as the election got increasingly polarised. Estimated in the final round of the prepoll opinion surveys to win 5 percent of the votes cast, that projection has now been revised to 3 percent.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will find its vote share reduced fromits 2009 numbers, going from 4.1 percent of votes cast to 3 percent projected now by the CSDS poll.

Others in the fray are set to lose their share of the votes too, the BSP projected to go from 4.8 percent of the votes cast in 2009 to 2 percent now.

The MNS certainly expects to put up a better performance in the state in October -- that is the election the party is more invested in, the LS polls appeared to be something of a lark with MNS chief Raj Thackeray first not clarifying which constituencies he will be fielding candidates from, then fielding candidates against only the Shiv Sena candidates while professing his support for the BJP and its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi. This, expectedly, left the MNS's traditional voter confused -- if its Marathi manoos agenda remained top priority, fieldng candidates against Shiv Sena candidates while supporting a win for BJP candidates simply defied logic. In addition, that Thackeray appeared to have suddenly given up his fight against toll collection on state highways -- an issue that got him and the party wide traction and considerable support -- after a conversation with the chief minister.

Agendaless and confused, having angered the Shiv Sena by appearing to do truck with the former's longtime ally the BJP, the MNS will be looking to infuse the cadre and the strategists with fresh ideas and faces before the Assembly election.

8.15 pm: NDA to win 249 seats, UPA-148 says Times Now

And Times Now - ORG has called it.

According to the survey the NDA is set to win 249 seats, while the UPA is set to win 148. This, needless to say, is a starkly different picture to what we have been seeing in the other exit polls by IBN-CSDS Lokniti and ABP-Nielsen.

Among the biggest surprises in the Times Now survey, was the fact that in Rajasthan, which just saw a huge wave for Vasundara Raje, the Congress is projected to win a majority. The survey said that of the 25 Lok Sabha seats, Congress gets 14, BJP 10 and others one. If this is indeed the case, this would be a massive shock for newly elected CM Vasundara Raje and the BJP in general.

The ABP - Nielsen survey has said that the BJP will get 22 seats, Congress 2, others 1 in the state - a vastly different picture to what Times Now - ORG is painting.

The National projection (party wise) by Times Now - ORG is showing the BJP with 210-220 seats (within range) and the Congress with 105-120 seats.

8.00 pm: BJP set to win 45-53 seats says CNN-IBN Lokniti

The exit poll results indicate that the presence of various factors have not made the fight a close one. In fact, BJP, led by Narendra Modi, seems to have a clear edge with the closest competition in the form of SP - a party considered to be on sticky ground in the state this year.

The results of the Lokniti-CSDS exit polls, conducted for CNN-IBN, shows that the BJP's vote share could jump by a 22.5 percent from its actual vote share in the 2009 polls. This translates to 45-53 seats for the party.

The second largest party according to CNN-IBN, is the Samajwadi Party with 13-17 seats, while the BSP will win 10-14 seats. The Congress party looks like it has been absolutely decimated, with it projected to win just 3-5 seats.

The biggest loser, predictably, is the Congress. The Congress and RLD's vote-share in 2009, was 21.5 percent and the Lokniti-CSDS survey, gives just 10 percent to the alliance this time. BSP too is set to lose out on its votes, it's share sinking to 21 percent from 27.4 percent during the last general elections.

Needless to say, Narendra Modi leads the PM choice race. However, the astonishing revival of BJP's fortunes cannot be attributed to just Modi alone. Sixty four percent of the respondents of the survey were of the opinion that they would have voted for the party, even if Modi was not the party's mascot or was not contesting from the state. Actually, on 17 percent of the surveys' respondents said that Narendra Modi was a deciding factor in them voting for BJP.

The caste-based vote-share, however, provides a clear picture on what holds the key to the party's resurgence in the state. Seventy-three percent of the upper caste respondents in the CNN IBN survey said they have voted for the BJP, quite predictably. However, 54 percent of the OBCs and 41 percent of the scheduled castes have also decided to back the BJP in the state making it evident, that the Muslim votes (or the lack of them), has probably no bearing on the BJP's fortunes this time round.

Only 8 percent of Muslims surveyed back the BJP, where as 56 percent of their votes go to SP. Only 13 percent of the Muslim votes go to Congress, despite its relentless pandering to the community.

7.30 pm: Is the Left making a comeback in West Bengal?

Is the Left making a comeback in West Bengal after it was decimated by the TMC in 2011? It certainly seems so.

The Lokniti-CSDS exit polls show that TMC's vote share is slated to jump by at least by 7 percent from last time to 38 percent. The BJP's vote-share has gone up, thanks to the 'Modi wave', but it is still a miniscule 15 compared to TMC's. TMC is set to get 25-31 seats, the Left Front 7 to 11 seats. The Congress might bag 2 to 4 seats and the BJP not more than 3 seats.

ABP News says that in West Bengal the TMC will get 24 seats, Left 12 seats, BJP 1 and Congress 5. So has the Mamata vitriol against Modi worked? It certainly seems so. But didi has a bigger problem.

According to the Times Now Exit Poll out of West Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats, TMC will secure 20 seats while the Left will get 15. Congress will get 5, BJP 2. She can take some comfort that her new nemesis Narendra Modi has not managed to make any inroads into the state, but her old nemesis the Left seems to be hot on her heels.

But for now, things look good for Didi.

In the present political narrative, Bengal had stayed clear of controversies for very long, following the expected line of Congress bashing and not lending support to any other party. While it was not clear if Mamata would support Modi, it was also not clear that she won't. Till a few weeks back, when Modi decided to question why anyone would buy Mamata Banerjee's paintings for crores.

The several exit polls conducted after polling ended today, just goes on to prove that Modi might have made that one rare mistake.

The Times Now-ORG exit polls, predicts 20 seats for the Trinamool Congress, 15 for the CPM and the Congress, five. The BJP, according to their poll, will get no more than two seats in West Bengal.

A third poll, this one conducted by ABP Nielsen for , gives 24 seats for the Trinamool Congress and 12 seats to the CPM. Congress is slated to bag 5, where as the BJP lags far behind with just one seat.

Meanwhile in Tamil Nadu, the Times Now - ORG poll has confirmed a Jayalalithaa sweep. It has given AIADMK 31 seats, DMK seven seats, Congress one and BJP none,

7.26 pm: Modi wave sweeps India, BJP set to form govt

So what we have managed to glean so far in the polls, is that the BJP is well set to form the government. Ab ki bar Modi sarkar certainly looks like a reality.

Reacting to all the good news, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to ABP news says, "The exit polls prove India wants to be free of corruption and bad governance".

However it must be noted, that the BJP does not seem to have made too much of an impact in Karnataka.

The Times Now Exit Poll projection for the 28 seats in Karnataka gave Congress nine seats, BJP 18 and JDS one.

This already comes on top of the CNN-IBN Lokniti poll that has given Congress is expected to win 12-16 seats in the state but despite having won the state in the recent assembly elections, the BJP is expected to make the most of support from Modi.

The BJP is expected to win 10-14 seats, which is a drop from the 18 seats it won in the 2009 election.

7.15 pm: TRS set to win big in Telangana

According to the IBN-Lokniti CSDS National Election Tracker exit poll survey, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti is expected to garner the maximum vote share with 37 percent of the vote share, thanks to it leading the charge for the creation of the new state. This vote share is over double what the party recorded in the 2009 elections, when it polled just 15 percent of the vote share.

The Congress, despite claiming the credit for finally creating the state, is expected to emerge the second in the state with 31 percent. The survey finds that the party's vote share fell almost 5 percent from the 2009 election and is even lower than what the pre-poll survey predicted. The BJP-TDP alliance is expected to get 21 percent of the vote share.

The survey found while the TRS enjoys the maximum support among older voters above 36 years of age, while the Congress still enjoys the highest support among the young voters.

Meanwhile according to the Times Now Exit Poll, out of the 25 Seemandhra Lok Sabha seats, Congress will zero seats, BJP 17, YSR Congress 8 and others will be wiped out, while in Telangana, which has 17 Lok Sabha seats, Congress will get four, BJP two, TRS nine and Left two seats.

Speaking to Times Now, a TDP spokesman said, "In Telangana we are getting five seats and in Seemandhra we are getting over 22."

7.10 pm: Times Now - ORG predicts dark days for didi

And while Jayalalithaa may be smiling in Tamil Nadu, her new best friend Mamata Banerjee may not be so happy.

According to the Times Now Exit Poll out of West Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats, TMC will secure 20 seats while the Left will get 15. Congress will get 5, BJP 2. She can take some comfort that her new nemesis Narendra Modi has not managed to make any inroads into the state, but her old nemesis the Left seems to be hot on her heels.

7.00 pm: Congress wiped out in Jayalalithaa's Tamil Nadu

The Congress has got a duck in Tamil Nadu. According to the CNN-IBN CSDS-Lokniti survey, the Congress will not win any seats in the state.

Jayalalithaa's AIADMK will win 22-28 seats, says the survey while the DMK will win 7-11. The BJP-MDMK combine is set to win 4-6 seats.

Jayalalithaa, who has been pushing for a greater national role is sure to be happy with the results.

She has been positing herself as a viable alternative to Narendra Modi, pitting her 'Tamil Nadu development model' against his Gujarat one. Tamil Nadu has been dotted with posters portraying her in a national role, including one in which prominent world leaders including Barack Obama and Putin are bowing before her.

Jayalalithaa is only too aware that for her to remain relevant in a post poll scenario, she needs to have most of Tamil Nadu's 39 seats under her belt. Has she done enough to ensure a continued role in the centre?

It looks like she just may have managed.

6.45 pm: BJP set to sweep Bihar says Times Now -ORG survey

The latest information from Bihar according to Times Now - Nielsen, is that the BJP will dominate Bihar. Of the 40 seats in the state, the BJP is set to win 28 seats, while the JDU is only winning 10, while the Congress-RJD combine looks as though it is a big flop.

The ABP Nielsen poll for Bihar predicts that in Bihar BJP will get 19 seats, LJP 2, RJD 10, Congress 4 and JD(U) 5.

But in Bihar, the biggest loser award undoubtedly goes to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. When a year ago, he decided to quit the lucrative NDA alliance which had seen him win all manner of accolades as the man who turned the impoverished state around, he would have still felt that he held all the key cards to the state in his hand.

But things deteriorated steadily from that point on. His own party leaders began questioning his judgement, He had no ally to speak off, he has no ally to fall back on and the castes that backed him through two elections have started abandoning him; and his own party men don't trust his leadership acumen anymore.

With just ten seats in the state as projected by Times Now - ABP, things don't look very promising for the JD(U).

6.37 pm: ABP Nielsen projects 46 seats for BJP in UP

Elsewhere, ABP-Nielsen has projected 46 seats for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. This is extremely significant, given that the BJP has been focusing strongly on Uttar Pradesh.

As Firstpost's Piyasree Dasgupta notes in this UP tracker, "Narendra Modi, debuting in the Lok Sabha polls this season, decided to anchor his BJP campaign in Uttar Pradesh, even deciding to contest from Varanasi, apart from Vadodara. Amethi, in UP, is a traditional Gandhi bastion, so is Rae Bareli. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are fighting from UP. A new entrant in the poll horizon in AAP's Arvind Kejriwal, who has decided to take Modi on at Varanasi. However, Modi dispatched his best man, Amit Shah to lead the campaign in Uttar Pradesh too.

6.30pm: Modi wave in Delhi helps BJP conquer AAP, Congress

With only 7 Lok Sabha seats, Delhi does not play a major role in the formation of a future government, but nonetheless, it has been one of the most keenly watched states this election.

Apart from the fact that it is the national capital, Delhi is interesting this poll, given the fact that the Congress (which won all 7 seats there in 2009) is set for a defeat at the hands of the BJP and new kids on the block, AAP.

Of course the fact that AAP received its mercurial start to politics in the Delhi assembly elections just makes the mix all the more intriguing. It won 28 seats to the BJP's 31, denying the latter of the necessary numbers to form the next government. In terms of voteshare, it won 30 percent of the vote, while the BJP won 33 percent.

However in this game, it is the BJP that has come out tops, beating even pre-poll estimates, at least in terms of voteshare.

The post poll results indicate that the party is set to win 45 percent of the vote, a clear 14 percentage points ahead of AAP, and a drastic improvement from its performance in the state assembly polls.

The fact that Congress would perform badly was a foregone conclusion. A prepoll survey by CSDS-Lokniti estimated that the party would only be able to win around 22 percent of the total voteshare. However the post poll results project an even worse result – Congress is set to win just 7 percent of the voteshare. Contrast this with its performance in 2009, and you have a very sorry story indeed.

The real story here however, is the BJP performance and the fact that it has left even AAP in the dust,

One possible reason for clear leap ahead is the fact that the Delhi voter is looking at a national picture and not a state level one. Pre poll surveys that came out ahead of even the Delhi assembly elections, indicated that while most people wanted an AAP led local government, they were in favour of a BJP led national government.

However, as much as the AAP would have liked to believe otherwise, the fact that the party chose to resign from government in just 49 days has also hurt them in the city that first gave them a vote of confidence.

According to the CSDS-Lokniti survey, more than 60 percent of those polled, said they believed that by resigning from the Delhi government in just 49 days, Arvind Kejriwal betrayed the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Another reason for the results however, is definitely the Modi wave. The survey notes that 33 percent of the people who said they voted for BJP, intimated that they only did so because Narendra Modi was projected as the PM candidate.

This, coming from Delhi, which was more divided than most states at least in terms of viable government choices, likely signals that despite Congress and other party's protestations to the contrary, the Modi wave is real.

6.30 pm: Moment of truth for BJP's 'Modi wave'

It's finally over. After nine phases of polling spread over one and a half months, one of the longest elections in the history of independent India has come to an end. And it has been an extremely tumultuous period, marked by allegations of polarisation, ugly personal attacks and repeated violations of the model code of conduct, with even the Election Commission failing to remain unscathed.

And in the midst of it all of course, has been the 'Modi wave' that has been pervading this election. Is it real? Has Modi been the key factor this Lok Sabha polls? Or is it all a bunch of media created 'hype' as the Congress and other opposition parties continue to insist? This is where we get a more concrete idea, one way or the other.

The BJP led NDA is of course, focusing on its 'Mission 272'. The last poll survey by NDTV-Hansa gave the alliance a whopping 275 seats. Will the post poll numbers confirm this? Other poll surveys that were released earlier have said that while the BJP/NDA would get a majority of the seats, they could potentially still fall short.

The Congress on the other hand are looking set to record their sharpest fall ever. CNN-IBN's CSDS-Lokniti poll survey predicted that the Congress will come in a distant second to the BJP, garnering between 94-106 seats without its allies. The NDTV poll tracker also predicted that the party on its own will win 106 seats, while the ABP-Nielsen poll tracker only gave the party 96 seats.

According to an internal Congress survey however, the party is reportedly hoping that gains in Assam, Karnataka, Punjab and Kerala will take it to a tally of 120-140 seats. But will the Congress come in third, losing out to even a potential third front government?

Here is a look at what all the pre poll surveys have been saying so far: