Counting is set to begin in India as the marathon general election in the world's largest democracy finally draws to a close.

印度大选倒计时开始，世界上最大的民主国家的马拉松大选终于即将接近。

Voter turnout was put at about 60% across India

The ruling Congress-led alliance（结盟，联盟） is battling the opposition¹ BJP coalition²（结合，合并） and a host of regional parties.

Most analysts³ and exit polls suggest no party will gain an overall majority.

Parties will have about two weeks to hammer out a workable government acceptable to the president. Parliament must then be constituted by 2 June.

Turnout for the election has been put at about 60%, compared with 58% in 2004.

Security has so far generally been considered a success, although about 60 people lost their lives, mostly in Maoist violence.

Clear pattern

Counting of the electronic voting machines begins at 0800 local time (0230 GMT) and the first trends are expected to be available within 30 to 45 minutes.

There should be a clear pattern by about noon local time.

The announcement of official results may take a while longer but the trends are likely to be reliable as they will be drawn⁴ from Election Commission results.

But given the expected tightness of the contest, correspondents say the real guessing game may only begin after all the results are declared.

Since polling ended on Wednesday, the two main parties have been involved in a series of political meetings, scrambling⁵（不规则性） to gain pledges of support in the predicted hung parliament.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says there have been suggestions that both the Congress and BJP are losing relevance⁶（中肯，适当） in India, ceding⁷ political space to smaller, local parties.

A strong performance will come as a major boost, he says, but a defeat will certainly spell the political end of the BJP's LK Advani and question the leadership quality of Rahul Gandhi, the latest member of the influential⁸ dynasty to head Congress.

Many names have been suggested for PM if Manmohan Singh loses out

Caste clashes

Security is tight in a number of areas ahead of the results announcement.

The BBC's Narayan Bareth in Jaipur, Rajasthan, says meetings of five or more people have been banned across the state with paramilitaries and armed police deployed⁹（展开，部署）.

Caste clashes in the state in 2007 and 2008 left 70 people dead.

Security is also tight in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says police and paramilitaries are being deployed outside counting halls.

He says there have been violent demonstrations¹⁰ against the elections in parts of the Kashmir valley in recent weeks, although all the five phases of polling passed off by and large peacefully.

After the counting the focus will fall on President Pratibha Patil.

There are no rules in the constitution on who she can invite to form a government. It could be the single largest party or most dominant¹¹ coalition（结合，合并）. She may ask for documented pledges of support.

As the marathon five-phase general election draws to a close, the government is breathing a sigh of relief that it has been largely trouble-free.

A senior home ministry¹² official told the Times of India: "Although we cannot afford to be complacent¹³ now... it certainly gives us a kind of satisfaction that we could succeed in preventing any terror attack on the mainland."