The first round of voting for local body elections has started in Kerala today. Polling is being held in 6910 wards of 395 local bodies of Kerala's five districts Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alapuja, and Idukki. At the same time, BJP leader Kummanam Rajasekharan voted in Thiruvananthapuram.
Voting began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. According to the State Election Commission, a total of 88,26,873 voters will cast their votes in this election, out of which 41,58,395 are male voters while 46,68,267 are female voters. Of these, 150 are also NRI voters while 42,530 voters will exercise their franchise for the first time.
In Kerala, just a few days before the local body elections, the State Election Commission ranked 1,850 polling stations as sensitive. Also, it was decided to broadcast the web to monitor the election process of all these polling stations.
According to the statement issued by the commission, these polling stations located in all the 14 districts of the state have been identified as sensitive based on the report of Police Chief Loknath Behera and State Election Commissioner V Bhaskaran directed the webcasting of the election process Given.
Kannur district of northern Kerala, which has witnessed clashes and political killings between activists of political parties, has the highest number of 785 polling stations. At the same time, 180 polling booths have been found sensitive in Thiruvananthapuram district, 100 in Malappuram, 120 in Kozhikode, 182 in Pallakad, 100 in Kasaragod, and 152 in Wayanad.
Meanwhile, the commission said that the electoral process would be video graphed at sensitive polling stations. He said that in the polling stations where there is no provision for web broadcasting, videography action will be taken and the Election Commission will bear the expenses.