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As voting begins for single-phase Assembly polls, Keralam Minister V Sivankutty on Thursday cast his vote at a polling station in Thiruvananthapuram's Mudavanmugal.
Apart from Sivankutty, renowned Malyalam actor Mohanlal also stood in the queue and cast his vote. Sivankutty is the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate from Nemom Assembly constituency, which is witnessing a triangular contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist). Sivankutty is facing a high-stakes battle in Nemom against Keralam BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Meanwhile, UDF has fielded former Congress leader and Keralam Minister G Karthikeyan's son, KS Sabarinadhan. Sivankutty earlier lost the constituency in 2016 to BJP veteran O Rajagopal, marking the party's first-ever Assembly victory in the state. However, later Sivankutty reclaimed the seat in the 2021 elections. Polling began for high-stakes electoral battles in two states, Assam and Keralam, as well as the Union Territory of Puducherry, on Thursday at 7 am with the Election Commission making arrangements for free, fair and smooth polling. Voters have queued outside polling stations to cast their votes in the single-phase assembly elections. Voting will be held for 126 seats in Assam, 140 in Keralam, and 30 in Puducherry in this phase of the election. Tamil Nadu will go to the polls on April 23, and West Bengal on April 23 and 29. Votes will be counted on May 4. In Keralam, over 2.6 crore electors will decide the fate of 883 candidates across 140 constituencies. Of the 2,69,53,644 registered voters across the state, there are 1,38,27,319 women voters and the number of male voters stands at 1,31,26,048. Officials said 277 voters have been registered in the 'third gender category.'Among the electorate, nearly 4,24,518 voters fall in the 18-19 age group, while 2,04,608 voters are aged 85 years and above To facilitate safe and secure polling, a total of 30,471 polling stations have been set up, which comprises 119 logistic and voter machine distribution centres and 41 vote counting centres. Keralam Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar on Tuesday said that 1.46 lakh trained polling personnel have been dispatched to polling stations. "As part of the arrangements for Kerala Assembly elections, we have the total electorate of 2.71 crores, and the service voters are 53,984. We will be counting the votes in 140 strong rooms and 43 locations. We have 1.46 lakh polling personnel who have been trained and will be dispatched to all the polling stations," he said "We have FIRs against 180 people in terms of election-related activities, and more than 1,200 police teams are very actively working in the field. We are ensuring that all the new initiatives by the Election Commission are implemented properly," he added. The election is seen as a contest between the ruling LDF and opposition UDF, with the BJP-led NDA, which has been gaining vote share. LDF holds 99 seats in the current assembly and is aiming for a third consecutive term based on its performance and welfare schemes. The LDF created a record in 2021 as it retained the southern state, which, over the decades, has seen power alternating between the coalitions led by CPI(M) and Congress. (ANI)
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