Polling for all 20 LS constituencies underway in Kerala

At several polling booths, voters were seen queuing up before the official start of polling at 7 a.m. and all those who stand in the queue by 6 p.m. will be allowed to cast their votes.

Thiruvananthapuram: Friday morning dawned in Kerala with people having an important task for the day as the state goes to the polls to elect 20 new Lok Sabha members.

At several polling booths, voters were seen queuing up before the official start of polling at 7 a.m. and all those who stand in the queue by 6 p.m. will be allowed to cast their votes.

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Among those who were spotted in the queue even before the polling began included Leader of Opposition V.D.Satheesan at his booth in Ernakulam, BJP candidate and superstar Suresh Gopi (at Trissur) and his entire family and his Left opponent V.S. Sunil Kumar of the CPI.

After casting his vote Satheesan said this is a “do or die or battle for the country and hence all should cast their votes”.

Veteran Indian Union Muslim League legislator P.K. Kunhalikutty after casting his vote said the result will have a “far-reaching impact on the future of our country”.

Congress legislator and party candidate at the Vadakara LS constituency was among the early voters at Palakkad.

In all, there are 25,177 polling booths and 181 auxiliary booths. Of these, 2,776 are model polling booths and 555 polling booths will be manned by all-women teams.

Youths are managing 100 booths while 10 are being managed by physically-challenged poll officials.

In the fray are 194 candidates belonging to the three political fronts which include the ruling CPI(M)-led Left, the Congress-led UDF and the BJP-led NDA besides a string of Independent candidates and a few other parties.

There are 2,77,49,159 voters in the state, including 1,43,33,499 women, 1,34,15,293 men and 367 transgenders.

Though the BJP-led NDA is fighting it out at all the 20 seats, the real triangular poll battle is at Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur.

At the 2019 polls, the Congress-led UDF won 19 seats while the Left won one.