Braving rain, Chengannur registers about 73 per cent polling

Braving downpour, about 73 per cent of 1.99 lakh voters today exercised their franchise in the bypoll to the Chengannur Assembly seat, officials said.

In 2016 Assembly elections, the poll percentage was 74.36.

The by-election was necessitated due to the death of sitting MLA K K Ramachandran Nair of CPI(M) in January this year.

The battle for Chengannur is largely between the ruling CPI(M), the main opposition Congress and the BJP.

Barring reports of technical problems with electronic voting machines in some booths, the polling was "incident- free", official sources said.

Long queues were seen at polling stations since morning.

All three major contenders for electoral laurel--Saji Cheriyan (CPI-M), D Vijayakumar (Congress) and P S Sreedharan Pillai (BJP)-- expressed confidence about their victory.

Over 150 polling booths and 17 auxiliary booths were set up across the constituency.

There was heightened presence of security personnel at over 20 sensitive booths where surveillance cameras were installed.

The votes will be counted on May 31.

The BJP has just one MLA in Kerala, and it is seeking to expand its support base in the state where politics has been dominated by the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front and Congress-headed United Democratic Front for decades.