Exit polls are expected within an hour, while the actual counting of the millions of votes polled across the country will take place Friday.
Monday saw a key index of the Bombay Stock Exchange closing at an all-time high, just before exit polls started pouring in, gaining over 550 points or nearly 2.5 percent intra-day.
Even as voting started, serpentine queues of men and women voters were seen at most of the 71,254 polling centres in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar as well as West Bengal.
The turnout was so heavy in Varanasi that some voters complained that they had been standing in the queue for as long as four hours.
More than 50 percent of the electorate had voted within the first six hours of polling that began at 7 a.m. Balloting continued right up to the time the polling centres closed in the evening.
