The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded 500 Christian and 112 Muslim candidates for the local body elections in Kerala.
If the BJP manages to win at least municipal corporations in these elections, it would brighten the party’s chances in the Kerala assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2021.
Kerala will elect its local bodies on December 8, 10 and 14 and the results are expected on December 16.
The state has total 27,656,579 voters: 13,172,629 male, 14, 483,668 female and 282 trans-gender. More than 75,000 candidates are in the fray for the polls after November 24, the last day for withdrawing nominations.
The voters will choose from 54,494 candidates for 941 grama panchayats. The candidates contesting in 152 block panchayats number 6,877 while 1,317 will fight it out for 14 district panchayats.
The 87 municipalities in the state will see 10,339 candidates and the six corporations have 1,986 candidates
At 8,497, Malappuram tops the list candidates in the fray, followed by Ernakulam 7,256, Thrissur 7,020 and Palakkad 6,532.