Photo: Haris Kuttippuram

Thiruvananthapuram: The Left was on course on Saturday for a much-needed electoral victory in the Kerala civic polls, dethroning the Congress-led UDF, available results showed. The BJP did better than last time.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) was leading in 507 gram panchayats at 1 p.m. The United Democratic Front was ahead in 379 while the BJP was leading in 16 and others in 15. The state has 941 gram panchayats.

At the block level, the LDF was leading in 92 and the UDF in 59 while at the district panchayat level, the rival fronts lead in seven each.

In the trends available for the municipalities, the LDF was leading in 44 and the UDF in 31 and the BJP in just one.

In the six corporations, the LDF won two, the UDF in one, while in three corporations it was a hung house.

Overall in the 2010 polls, the UDF won 65 percent of the total seats.
It is a strong come back for the Left which has not been able to secure a total win in any polls since they won the 2006 assembly polls.

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 gram panchayats, it was the Congress-led UDF that was far ahead of the Left.

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

As the results began to come in thick and fast, the Left opposition has been able to clearly edge out the ruling Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF) in all the segments of the three-tier local body structure in the state.

The BJP had reason to cheer as it came second in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, pushing the Congress to third position after they won 34 seats, while the Congress could manage only 21 and the Left secured 42.

The BJP, which secured around 500 seats in the 2010 polls, has so far been able to muster about 1,100 seats.

(Agencies)