Thiruvananthapuram, March 15: Kerala is gearing up for the assembly elections on April 9, with a total of 2.71 crore voters across 140 constituencies. The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the election schedule on Sunday.
During a press conference in New Delhi, the ECI released the election calendar, detailing the dates for nominations, document verification, withdrawal of candidacies, voting, and counting of votes.
With the announcement of the schedule, the Model Code of Conduct has come into immediate effect across the state.
According to the office of Chief Electoral Officer Ratan U. Kelkar, the elections will be based on the final voter list prepared and released on February 20, following a special intensive revision.
Kelkar has called a meeting with representatives of all political parties on Monday at 3 PM.
“We are fully prepared for the elections,” Kelkar stated.
The updated list indicates that the number of female voters continues to surpass that of male voters in the state. Out of the total voters, approximately 1.31 crore are men, while 1.38 crore are women, reflecting Kerala’s ongoing trend of higher female voter participation.
The final list also includes 2,23,558 expatriate voters who have registered as voters living abroad.
Officials reported that the final voter list was released on February 20 after meetings with representatives from various political parties. All 140 assembly seats underwent hearings and scrutiny during the revision process.
As part of this process, 53,229 names were removed from the draft voter list after verification. These included voters who had passed away, those who acquired citizenship in another country, individuals who moved out of their assembly constituency, and cases of duplicate entries.
Additionally, a significant number of new voters were added during the revision campaign. Between October 27 of last year and January 30 of this year, the commission approved 13,51,151 applications submitted via Form 6 for the inclusion of new names in the voter list.
Furthermore, 1,59,111 applications submitted under Form 6A for registration as expatriate voters were also approved.
Overall, the Election Commission processed 24,28,639 applications related to adding and removing names during the revision, while 3,93,333 forms were accepted for updating existing voter information. With the election schedule now announced, political parties are expected to ramp up their preparations for what is anticipated to be a highly competitive assembly election.
Leave a Comment