Till Wednesday, 97,720 nominations have been filed for the local body polls planned in three phases in December, the State Election Commission (SEC) has said.
Thursday is the last day for filing nominations for the polls.
The major chunk of the nominations – 75,702 – has been filed for the elections to grama panchayats.
So far, 6,493 nominations have been received for block panchayats, 1,086 for district panchayats, 12,026 for municipalities and 2,413 for the six Corporations.
Nominations were accepted from November 12 onwards after the commission formally issued the election notification.
Malappuram has received the highest number of nominations thus far - 13,229, followed by Thrissur (10,869), Ernakulam (9,557), Kozhikode (9,110) and Thiruvananthapuram (8,999).
Last date for withdrawal
The scrutiny of the documents will be held on Friday. November 23 is the last date for withdrawing the nominations.
The SEC has selected the colours for the labels and ballot papers for the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The colours will be white for grama panchayats, pink for block panchayats and sky blue for district panchayat. White will be used in Corporations and municipalities.
Remuneration hiked
The remuneration of officials deployed on election duty has been hiked. The remuneration for presiding officer and counting supervisor has been hiked to ₹600 a day.
Polling officer, counting assistant will get ₹500 per day, polling assistant ₹400, district-level master trainer ₹750 per session, and block-level trainers ₹500 per session. The daily food allowance for all officials has been fixed at ₹250 per day.
Barred from contesting
The SEC has clarified that preprimary teachers and other employees in government schools cannot contest in the local body elections. However, teachers and staff in self-financing, aided, and unaided schools can contest as candidates, an official press note issued here said.
