Elections in gargantuan India are finally over. The results will start coming from the morning of 23 May. Which way will India go -downhill to one country, one language, one culture, one religion and hate for all others or will some semblance of inclusiveness return? This is the key question confronting the teeming billions of  India.

The seventh and last phase of elections completed today and with it, the elections to 542 of the 543 constituencies across India are over.

Without support from exit polls, the World Sikh News predicted at the outset that India is likely to see a hung parliament and all exit polls pouring out on TV screens today, irrespective of which party or alliance they show as winning, they all predict a hung parliament.

While Modi’s India was supposed to go cashless in all its dealings after demonetisation, the Election Commission of India seized a huge cache of cash during the elections purportedly meant for “cash for vote” by different political parties. The amount collected is the highest so far in any election.

With the Electoral Bonds sold by the country from unaccounted sources soaring, the writing is on the wall that unscrupulous political leaders will be using the money for horse trading and cross-voting to form a coalition government.

The Bharatiya Janta Party has been upfront by saying that “everyone is welcome.” The Congress and the other Opposition are “already in talks.”

The portents are ominous. With the fascist BJP in power, Narendra Modi will be the Prime Minister, ushering in an era which even the far-sighted George Orwell -who wrote the novel “1984” would not have thought of and would shudder to think. Lies, hate, propaganda, street barbarism will rule the day and the BJP will not be able to stop the Frankenstein monster they have themselves let loose on the people of the country.

Should the “khichdi” government of Congress and its allies come to power, they will face an uphill task in fulfilling their populist promises and a belligerent Bharatiya Janta Party will not allow the Indian Parliament to function in exactly the same way that they made life difficult for Dr Manmohan Singh.

This has perhaps been India’s most visible and vicious election ever. Visible because of the reach of satellite television and social media and vicious because of the hate-mongering of the BJP leadership.

Whichever party wins to elect the seventeen Parliament of India, during the process in the last eight weeks, the Election Commission of India lost credibility and the Indian media lost trust. Will the people of India win?