BJP makes strong inroads in Kerala Civic Polls

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 7: The Left opposition on Saturday surged ahead in the Kerala civic polls, while the ruling Congress-led UDF was on the back foot, initial trends showed. The BJP too made strong inroads. It might win Palakkad Municipality if the number game favours.

* BJP became the single largest party in a Municipality in Kerala for the first time. The party is all set to win Palakkad. BJP had never won any Municipality in Kerala.

* BJP leading in 15 out of 941 Gram Panchayats.

* BJP is leading in 913 Wards in Gram Panchayats, 21 in Block Panchayats, 3 in District Panchayats, 236 in Municipalities and 51 Wards in Corporations.

* It won 33 Wards in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, behind LDF and ahead of UDF.

* This is the best-ever performance of BJP in Kerala Civic Polls. Amit Shah had put up a lot of efforts there. The party had tied up with a new local outfit SNDP.

The 2015 polls were held for 21,871 seats in 941 village, 152 blocks and 14 district panchayats besides 86 municipalities and six corporations.

In the 2010 civic polls while the Left won in the Corporation (by winning three out of the five corporations), in the other segments – municipalities, district panchayats, block panchayats and grama panchayats, it was the Congress-led UDF that was far ahead of the Left.

But, on Saturday morning as the voting trends came in, things appeared to be favouring the LDF even at the gram and block panchayaths levels. Both the rival fronts are engaged in a neck-to-neck fight in the district and municipality segments and at the corporation, the LDF and the UDF are leading in three corporations each.

As far as the BJP is concerned, it has been able to make inroads and is likely to make a substantial increase in the total number of seats from the around 500 they had won in 2010. (With inputs from IANS)