Kerala local body elections 2025 to be held in two phases on December 9 and 11; counting on December 13

Announcing the election schedule in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday, November 10, 2025, State Election Commissioner A. Shajahan said that the 2025 local body elections in Kerala will be held in two phases on December 9 and December 11.

Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki, Alappuzha and Ernakulam will go to polls on December 9. Thrissur, Malappuram, Wayanad, Palakkad, Kannur, Kasaragod and Kozhikode will go to polls on December 11.

Votes will be counted at multiple counting centers across the state starting at 8 a.m. on Dec. 13.

Nomination applications can be made until November 21. The review of nomination papers will be held on November 22. The deadline for withdrawal of nominations is 24 November.

Code of conduct model in force

With the announcement of the program, the code of conduct model went into effect statewide. Mr Shajahan said the rules would be strictly enforced.

Voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with mock voting taking place one hour before the actual voting begins.

Elections will be held for 1,199 of the 1,200 local bodies in Kerala. Following the delimitation drive in Kerala, the number of wards in 1,200 local institutions increased to 23,612. Mr. Shajahan said the 2025 elections will be held in 23,576 wards, except for 36 wards of Mattannur municipality in Kannur, where the elections will be held only in September 2027.

He said elections will be held in 17,337 wards in grama panchayats, 2,267 wards in block panchayats, 346 district panchayat wards, 3,205 municipal wards and 421 Corporation wards.

There are a total of 33,746 voting centers for the 2025 elections. Of these, 28,127 are in panchayats, corporations in 2015 and 3,604 in municipalities. The number of voters per station has been fixed at 1,200 in panchayats and 1,500 in municipalities and corporations.

Mr. Shajahan said that first level checks have been completed in 1,37,922 ballot papers and 50,693 check units.

In 2020, local body polls in Kerala were held under strict supervision in three phases in December amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 2020 elections, the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) had gained an upper hand over the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

Kerala has just over 2.84 crore voters. The commission also granted another two-day period, on 4 and 5 November, for the names to be recorded on the list. The additional list will be published on November 14, the commissioner said.

The 2025 local body elections coincided with the conduct of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of the 2026 State Assembly elections in Kerala. The Kerala government and major political parties, including the CPI(M) and the Congress, had objected to the ECI’s decision to go ahead with the SIR citing confusion and discomfort over local body poll holdings.