States » SouthPosted at: Dec 8 2020 11:03PM

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 8 (UNI) The first phase of the three-phase local body elections held in five districts of Kerala witnessed 72.67 per cent turn out on Tuesday.
The polling was held under strict COVID guidelines including use of sanitisers and gloves, mandatory wearing of masks, keeping proper distance while queueing up in front of polling stations.
Alappuzha district recorded the highest polling while Thiruvananthapuram district recorded the lowest.
Thiruvananthapuram recorded 69.76 percent polling, Kollam 73.41, Pathanamthitta 69.70, Alappuzha 77.23 and Idukki 74.56.
Meanwhile, the Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation recorded 59.73 per cent polling while the Kollam Corporation recorded 66.06 per cent turn out.
The polling held to 6,910 wards in 395 local bodies of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Idukki districts. The State Election Commission has deployed 56,122 officials for the polling duties in 11,225 booths of five districts.
State Election Commission (SEC) sources said 88,26,873 lakh people (41,58,395 male voters, 46,68,267 female voters, 150 Pravasis and 61 transgenders) including 42,530 new voters were in the voters list.
The fate of 24,584 candidates will be decided in the first phase -- 6465 candidates in Thiruvananthapuram, 5723 in Kollam, 5463 in Alappuzha, 3699 in Pathanamthitta and 3234 in Idukki.
The second and third phase of polling will be held on December 10 and 14 respectively. The counting of votes will be held on December 16.
Though polling was disrupted due to malfunctioning of voting machines in some places, it ended without any violent incident in all the five districts.
The term of elected representatives to 1200 local bodies, except Mattannur municipality, had ended on November 11. However, the poll schedule was postponed to December due to COVID pandemic.
In the second phase on December 10, polling will be held in Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad and Wayanad districts.
In the third phase on December 14, polling will be held bodies in Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod districts.
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