Kerala registered a 69 per cent polling at 6.45 pm whenthe voting in all 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state drew to a close.
Though the official time for polling ended at 6 pm, in view of huge queues seen outside polling booths across the state the polling was extended by 45 minutes. Hence, the final turnout is likely to go up.
Tokens were issued to the voters waiting in the queues.
The state had seen a voter turnout of 77.84 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The election process, held amidst tight security arrangements, was primarily incident-free except for the breakdown of electronic voting machines (EVM) reported in some booths of the state.
A total of 194 candidates are in the fray in the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The Kerala Police and Central forces provided tight security for the polling in a total of 25,231 booths arranged at 13,272 places across the state.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) won 19 of the 20 seats, while LDF clinched just one.
Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Congress working committee member Sashi Tharaoor, sitting MP and CPI leader Pannyan Raveendran are engaged in fierce battle, registered a voter turnout of 65 per cent.
Thrissur, another constituency where a triangular fight between Congress’ K Muraleedharan, actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi and CPI leader VS Sunil Kumar was witnessed, recorded a polling percentage of 69 per cent.
Wayanad, from where Rahul Gandhi is contesting against CPI’s Annie Raja and BJP state chief K Surendran, registered a voter turnout of 70 per cent.