India starts voting a fortnight from today

And from April 17 to May 12, there will be six more rounds of polling, covering an entire landmass from the icy peaks of Kashmir to Tamil Nadu in the deep south, and from the deserts of Rajasthan bordering Pakistan to the northeastern states bordering China and Myanmar.

The millions of votes will get counted May 16 and the verdict will be known, in a few hours, by midday. Voting would be done countrywide through electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The BJP, which ruled the country from 1998 to 2004, is confident that it will be voted back to power. "We will get around 230 (Lok Sabha) seats on our own," a BJP leader, Vijay Goel, told IANS. "And we will have our allies too."

The Congress, although stressed thanks to a string of corruption scandals that have plagued the central government, as well as the regional parties are not giving up.

More than the Congress, the regional parties are confident of holding on to their strongholds in most parts of the country. And playing a spoilsport is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which appears to be ranged against everyone.