Kerala's final round of civic polls on Thursday

Over 14 million electorate are eligible to vote on Thursday in the second and final phase of Kerala's civic polls which is witnessing a keen contest between the UDF and the LDF.

The voting will be spread across seven of the 14 districts and decide the political fate of more than 40,000 candidates vying for 12,651 seats.

The seven districts are Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram.

The first phase of the voting on November 2 saw more than 8.4 million of the 10.1 million registered voters exercising their franchise.

Counting of votes will take place on Saturday.

While the major clash is between the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the Left opposition, the BJP is trying to make major gains in a state where it has traditionally been a marginal player.

In the 2010 civic polls, for the first time in several years, the UDF won more than 65 percent of the over 20,000 seats.

The Oommen Chandy-led UDF government feels that if it maintains a similar grip over the local bodies, it could well be on the road to victory in the assembly polls next year.

But the Left is optimistic too. Senior CPI-M legislator A.K. Balan said: "The Left is heading for a handsome victory in the civic polls."

The BJP, which had just around 500 seats in the outgoing local bodies, is hoping to do better.