The vote counting for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will begin at 8 am on Thursday. However, the results are expected to be out only by late evening.

The prolonged time frame is due to the fact that for the first time in a Lok Sabha election results of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be matched with slips generated by the voter-verified paper audit trail or VVPATs.

The entire exercise of EVM-paper trail machine matching will take an additional four to five hours.

The exercise will take place in five polling stations per assembly segment which effectively means that out of nearly 10.3 lakh polling stations, the EVM-VVPAT matching will take place in 20,600 such stations.

A total of 67.11 percent voting has been recorded in the seven-phase elections. The percentage of votes means that more than two-thirds of the eligible 90.99 crore voters participated in the democratic exercise. It is the highest ever voter turnout in an Indian parliamentary election.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) — the central body that oversees the elections in the country — has not provided the number of counting centres being set up for Thursday, stating that the data is not centrally available.

There are a total of 8,000 candidates contesting the polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav are among the prominent candidates awaiting their fate on Thursday.

A News18-Ipsos exit poll has predicted the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning 336 of the 542 seats, with BJP taking 276 seats on its own. Congress-led UPA is projected to win 82 seats, with the grand old party taking 46 seats and its allies 36 constituencies.

(With inputs from PTI)