By P. Sreekumaran
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The stage is set for the local body elections in Kerala with the State Election Commissioner A. Shajahan announcing the poll schedule.
The elections will be held in two phases on December 9 and December 11. Nominations can be filed up to November 21. The last date for withdrawal is November 24. And the counting of votes will take place on December 13. Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki, Alappuzha and Ernakulam will go to polls on December 9 while Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasaragod will go to polls on December 11.
Elections are to be held to 1199 of the 1200 local bodies in Kerala. The number of wards in the 1200 local bodies has gone up to 23,612. The 2025 elections are being held to 23, 576 wards, excluding the 36 wards of Mattannur municipality in Kannur where elections are due in September 2027. Elections will be held to 17, 337 wards in gramapanchayats, 2,267 wards in the block panchayats, 346 district panchayat wards, 3,205 municipal wards, and 421 Corporation wards.
In all, there are 33,746 polling stations for the 2025 elections. Of these, 28,127 are in the panchayats, 2,015 in the Corporations, and 3,604 in the municipalities. The number of voters per station has been fixed at 1,200 in the panchayats and 1,500 in the municipalities and Corporations. The 2020 local body elections were held in three phases in December amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Kerala has a little over 2.84 crore voters.
In the 2020 polls, the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) had prevailed over the Congress-headed United Democratic Front (UDF).
The 2025 polls have come against the backdrop of a controversy. All the political parties with the exception of the BJP have vehemently opposed the holding of the Special Intensive Revision of the voters’ list along with the local body elections, ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
The stakes are high for the principal contenders, LDF and UDF. With the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance also in the fray, three-cornered contests are inevitable. The LDF and the UDF believe that the fight is mainly between them. The BJP does not count for much. At best, it can prove the spoilsport for both fronts in a few wards. The saffron camp thinks that it will improve its performance this time. In the 2020 polls, the BJP won the Palakkad municipality and came second in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.
The high-voltage poll campaign will be fought on a variety of local and national issues, including the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ lists.
The LDF is in a confident frame of mind, basing its optimism on the achievements of the Pinarayi Vijayan Government over the years. It has an impressive record in boosting infrastructure development in the State and expanding the social welfare net, including the ongoing LIFED Mission housing scheme for homeless families. The declaration, recently, of erasing extreme poverty is also expected to boost the LDF’s prospects in a big way.
As for the Congress, it is a life and death fight. The UDF has remained in Opposition for over two consecutive terms. The Congress is pinning its hopes on the anti-incumbency factor to upset the LDF’s calculations. It also thinks that the so-called whittling down of allocations to the local bodies will also stand it in good stead. But, the UDF’s organizational health is anything but good. The Front, especially the Congress is rocked by internal strife. The party High Command is trying hard to enforce discipline and end internecine infighting. Will the high command succeed? The past record is anything but positive.
The BJP is in no better position. The so-called ‘party with a difference’ is also riven by factionalism. The BJP state chief Rajiv Chandrasekhar himself is under a cloud with allegations of corruption against him. Many senior party leaders resent Rajiv’s style of functioning. They think that the BJP-led NDA cannot perform well under his leadership. The differences are likely to surface if the party fails to put up a decent performance in the elections. (IPA Service)
Democratic Socialists Won City Elections Across The Country Last Week 