Kerala civic polls: Left ahead in initial trends

Despite facing a host of controversies ahead of the civic body polls, initial trends on Wednesday showed the ruling CPI-M-led-Left ahead of its detractors.

The Congress-led UDF is putting up a better show in the first round of counting that began at 8 a.m. while the hype created by the BJP is yet to catch on.

The shocker came at the Kochi corporation, where the Congress' mayor candidate N.Venugopal lost by just one vote to the BJP.

In the three-tier local body structure the initial trends indicate that in the six corporations in the state the Left is ahead in four and UDF is ahead in two corporations.

Early trends of the Kerala local body poll results:

Gram Panchayats-941 LDF -403 UDF -341 NDA-29 Others-56

Block Panchayats-152 LDF-93 UDF-56 NDA-2

District Panchayats-14 LDF-11 UDF-3

Municipality-86 LDF-38 UDF-39 NDA -3 Others -6

Corporations- 6 LDF-8, UDF-2