An Indian election is a marathon, not a sprint. Voting will start on April 7, but the voting will move around the country in nine phases, ending on May 12. Then the votes will all be counted — there are 814 million eligible voters — and the result will be known on May 16.
A lot of people think they know the result now: Narendra Modi of the BJP will be prime minister, and India will swing right.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party) is a socially conservative, Hindu nationalist party that has had only one full term in national office, in 1998-2004. That time, it led a broad coalition that restrained its more extreme sectarian impulses. This time, however, many Indian observers claim to detect a "Modi wave" of support that might carry the BJP into power on its own. That would certainly make for interesting times.