Thiruvananthapuram, March 15 (IANS) With a total electorate of 2.71 crore spread across 140 Assembly constituencies, Kerala is set to go to the polls on April 9 after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the election schedule on Sunday.

The poll panel unveiled the election calendar at a press conference in New Delhi, detailing the dates for filing nominations, scrutiny of papers, withdrawal of candidature, polling and counting of votes.

With the announcement of the schedule, the Model Code of Conduct came into immediate effect across the state.

The elections will be conducted on the basis of the final electoral roll prepared and released on February 20, following the Special Intensive Revision, according to the office of Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U. Kelkar.

Incidentally, Kelkar has called a meeting of all political parties on Monday at 3 p.m.

“We are fully ready for the elections,” said Kelkar.

The updated rolls show that women voters continue to outnumber men in the state.

Of the total electorate, about 1.31 crore are men while 1.38 crore are women, reflecting Kerala’s consistent trend of a higher female voter base.

The final list also includes 2,23,558 Pravasi voters registered as overseas electors.

Officials said the final electoral roll was published on February 20 after a meeting with representatives of various political parties.

The revision process involved hearings and verification across all 140 Assembly constituencies.

As part of the exercise, 53,229 names were removed from the draft electoral roll after scrutiny.

These deletions included voters who died during the enumeration period, those who acquired foreign citizenship, individuals who shifted residence outside their constituencies and cases where duplication of names was detected.

At the same time, the revision drive witnessed a significant addition of new voters. Between October 27 last year and January 30 this year, the Commission accepted 13,51,151 applications submitted through Form 6 seeking fresh inclusion in the electoral roll.

In addition, 1,59,111 applications filed under Form 6A by expatriates seeking registration as overseas voters were approved.

Overall, the Election Commission processed 24,28,639 applications relating to inclusion and deletion during the revision period, while 3,93,333 forms were accepted for corrections to existing voter details.

With the schedule now announced, political parties are expected to intensify their preparations for what is likely to be a keenly contested Assembly election in the state.

–IANS

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