Vote counting is now underway at counting stations in India’s 543 constituencies. Paper ballots, cast by those who cannot vote electronically, will be counted first. Then electronic votes will be counted. These are cast on electronic voting machines, which have been used since 2,000.

Results are announced for each constituency as soon as counting is completed. India follows the first-past-the-post system, under which a candidate with the highest number of votes wins, regardless of garnering a majority or not.

Result trends generally become clear by the afternoon of counting day and are flashed on television news networks. The official count from the Election Commission of India can come hours later.

In past years, key trends have been clear by mid-afternoon with losers conceding defeat, even though full and final results may only come late on Tuesday night.

Celebrations are expected at the headquarters of Modi’s BJP if the results reflect exit poll predictions.

The winners of the general election are expected to form a new government by the middle of June.

After the ECI announces the results for all 543 seats, the president invites the leader of the party, or an alliance, which has more than half the seats to form the government.

The party or coalition with 272 or more seats then chooses a prime minister to lead the government.

Vote counting in India is decentralised and done simultaneously at counting stations in each of the 543 constituencies around the country.

Counting is set to begin at 8 am (02.30 GMT) with the tallying of postal ballots that only select groups can use, including people with disabilities, or those involved in essential services including security forces and some government officials.

After paper ballots, votes from the Electronic Voting Machines are counted. India has used the machines since 2000, moving away from paper ballots for national and state elections.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of India’s election results with me, Helen Sullivan.

This election was the largest in world history, with almost a billion eligible voters and 642 million people turning out to vote, according to the Election Commission of India.

The Lok Sabha, “House of the People” or lower house, election started in mid-April and progressed over seven phases until 1 June, as a deadly heatwave gripped the country. Dozens of voters and election officials died during the process as temperatures approached 50C in some areas.

Most voters used electronic voting machines, which means results will be declared today. Exit polls predict the election will be easily won by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his ruling Bharatiya Janata party-led alliance.

But Modi will be eyeing a two-thirds majority, which would have significant implications for India’s 1.4 billion citizens. The opposition INDIA bloc needs to win more than 180 of the 543 seats to prevent the two-thirds majority for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Vote counting is about to start, around 8am IST (in roughly 15 minutes’ time). We’ll have more detail shortly on how the process works.

Here is what we know so far:

• According to exit polls released on Saturday night, Modi and the BJP are looking at a decisive win and may even gain enough seats to win a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would allow the government to make far-reaching amendments to the constitution.

• Voting in the seventh and final staggered round of the six-week poll ended on Saturday, held in brutally hot conditions across swaths of the country. At least 33 polling staff died from heatstroke in Uttar Pradesh state alone on Saturday, where temperatures hit 46.9C (116.4F), election officials said.

• A top opponent of Narendra Modi vowed on Sunday to keep fighting “dictatorship” before he returned to jail, following elections widely expected to produce another landslide victory for the Hindu-nationalist leader. Arvind Kejriwal is among several opposition leaders under criminal investigation, with colleagues describing his arrest the month before the general elections began in April as a “political conspiracy” orchestrated by Modi’s BJP.

• Modi’s political opponents and international rights groups have long sounded the alarm about threats to India’s democracy. US thinktank Freedom House said this year the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.

• Modi’s party won the regional vote in Arunachal Pradesh, a state bordering China, while a local party swept to power in Sikkim, a Himalayan state, officials and politicians said on Sunday. Provincial elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were held on 19 April simultaneously with the first phase of the national polls.
  The BJP comfortably retained power in Arunchal Pradesh by winning 46 of the 60 seats.