Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Assembly got underway to elect a new 140-member Kerala Legislative Assembly. The destiny of 957 candidates would be decided by an electorate of 1,41,62,025 women, 1,32,83,724 men and 290 transgender voters.

Starting at sharp 7 am, poling gather momentum adhering to strict Covid protocols and while in the 2016 Assembly polls, 21,498 polling booths were there, this time due to the Covid pandemic the number of polling booths has been increased to 40,771. The poll will end at 7 p.m. and the last hour has been kept aside for Covid positive patients and for those in quarantine.

The poll officials at 5.30 a.m. conducted a mock polling to see that all the electronic voting machines are in order.

59,292 Kerala police officials and 140 companies of CISF, CRPF and BSF officials are also deployed for duty, which is by far the biggest deployment of central forces for any poll in the state.

According to latest updates, till 9 am, Thrissur records 10.65 percent voter turnout, Kozhikode 9.67 percent and Kasaragod 9.22 percent. Ernakulam records 8.15  percent voter turnout till  near about 9 am.

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