2,002 complaints come up before delimitation commission in Thiruvananthapuram district

State Delimitation Commission reviews 2,002 petitions on ward boundary redrawing in Thiruvananthapuram, final decision expected soon.

The State Delimitation Commission examined, in all, 2,002 petitions/complaints related to the redrawing of ward boundaries in Thiruvananthapuram district over a two-day public hearing.

Majority of the complaints dealt with alleged faults in the names of wards, house numbers, and the demarcation of boundaries.The two-day hearings in Thiruvananthapuram, held at the District Collectorate, was also the last of the district-level hearings conducted by the commission in connection with the Phase-1 of the delimitation exercise which covered wards in grama panchayats, municipalities and Corporations in Kerala.

The commission has taken cognisance of the complaints. The final notification will be issued within a month after a decision is finalised on the complaints at a full meeting of the delimitation panel, the commission chairperson and State Election Commissioner A. Shajahan, who led the hearings, said.

On Saturday, 770 complaints from the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation limits and 77 from the four municipalities in the district were examined. The commission had examined complaints from the 12 blocks on Friday.

In the case of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, while the number of wards will increase from the existing 100 to 101, eight of the current wards will be scrapped, with nine new ones replacing them. The contours of most of the wards in the Corporation are also set to change.

The commission had issued a draft notification on the first phase in November 2024. The public hearings were held in all 14 districts as part of redressing grievances related to the redrawing of boundaries. For the 2025 delimitation exercise, the commission used the open source software-based QField app to map the wards.

District Collector and District Election Officer Anu Kumari, Subcollector Alfred O.V., delimitation commission secretary Josnamol S., and Deputy Collector (Election) N. Balasubramanian were also present at the hearing.