Local body polls: special elections in three wards on Monday

Special elections to three local body wards in Kerala where the 2025 local body elections were postponed following the deaths of candidates will be held on Monday (January 12). The wards include Vizhinjam in the high-profile Thiruvananthapuram Corporation where the BJP had wrested power for the first time.

Elections will be held on Sunday to the Payimbadam ward of Moothedam grama panchayat in Malappuram district, Onakkoor ward of Pambakkuda grama panchayat in Ernakulam, and the Vizhinjam ward of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.

Polling will begin at 7 a.m. and conclude at 6 p.m. The votes will be counted at 10 a.m. on Tuesday (January 13), State Election Commissioner (SEC) A. Shajahan said.

Vizhinjam ward has 13,307 voters in all, including 6,729 women, 6,577 men and one transgender voter. This ward will have ten polling stations. The BJP had wrested the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation from the CPI(M) by winning 50 of the 101 wards in the civic body and securing the support of one Independent candidate. Sameera S. Mikhdad of the CPI(M) had won the 2020 local body polls in this coastal ward. Vizhinjam has nine candidates in the fray this time.

The Payimbadam ward has 950 voters including 488 women and 462 men. The Onakkoor ward has 1,183 voters of whom 582 are women and 601 are men. Both wards have four candidates each in the contest.

The 2025 local body elections, to 1,199 local bodies, were held in two phases on December 9 and 11 in the State.

Although the SEC had withdrawn the model code of conduct in the State with effect from December 15, it remains in effect in the whole of the Moothedam and Pambakuda grama panchayats and in the case of Vizhinjam, which is a Corporation ward, within the ward boundaries.