Counting of postal votes begins in Kerala, Left ahead

Thiruvananthapuram, May 2 (IANS) Intial trends in Kerala show that of the 87 constituencies, the ruling Left leads in 50 seats, when counting of postal votes were taken up first at 8 a.m. on Sunday.The Congress-led UDF leads in 36 and the BJP on one seat.Looking back at previous elections, it's always the Left which has the edge when it comes to postal ballots.Voting took place in the state on April 6 to elect 140 legislators to the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly.The ruling Pinarayi Vijayan government has been touted to win the polls by all the exit polls, which have been dismissed by the Congress-led Opposition.While hitherto the average number of postal ballots in a constituency stood around 500, this time in some constituencies, it has gone up to as high as 4,000 votes because voters aged above 80 were allowed this facility and this time there were more number of election officials.Moreover this time one will have to wait for almost 30 minutes to know the latest updates as the practice of providing live updates on the website of the Chief Electoral officer is not there this time and hence the results will only be available manually when the concerned official at the respective counting centre comes out with their half hourly report.
--IANS sg/skp/