Strong rooms in 140-seat Kerala assembly opened up early morning on Sunday. Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP), Metroman E Sreedharan's lead rises to 7,000 in Palakkad Assembly constituency.


As per the early trends, the technocrat-turned-political leader bagged a sizeable number of postal votes from two wards where Congress won in the December local body polls. E Sreedharan is taking on incumbent MLA and Congress candidate Shafi Parambil. In 2016 state elections, Parambil had won, the then BJP candidate had finished second.


What early trends say?


The CPI-M led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has managed to gain a clear upper hand in the early trends. As per the data available, LDF is leading in 92 seats while UDF is leading in 45 seats and BJP is leading on just 3 seats.