At 7.15 am, a long queue had already formed in front of the Kattathy LP School in Ettumanoor constituency when a young man, Ajith Chacko, walked in. He approached a police officer and showed him something. Initially asked to stand at the back of the queue, he was allowed to move ahead moments later after a brief word with the presiding officer.

Murmurs spread through the line. It was only after casting his vote that Ajith turned to the crowd and held up his wedding card. “I have to attend my wedding, I can’t be late,” he said. The tension eased almost instantly, and those who had murmured moments earlier broke into smiles, wishing him luck as he walked out.

But the chatter in the queue did not die down. Some had already been waiting for over 20 minutes. “How long do we have to wait? During the panchayat elections, it was much quicker,” said a voter, shifting uneasily.

Their frustration had its reasons. Many needed to leave for work, while others had arrived early to beat both the heat and the threat of rain. Though the morning was cloudy, it followed days of intense heat, prompting voters to turn up early. By 8 am, the queue had only grown longer.

The morning clouds, in a way, lifted the uncertainty among booth-level officers and political workers. Many had feared that the harsh summer heat would keep voters away, but the relatively cooler start to the day helped ease those concerns.

At the Punnathura Government UP School, the state’s youngest candidate, Athira D Nair, arrived to cast her vote in the high-profile contest against minister V N Vasavan and Kottayam DCC president Nattakom Suresh. She initially stood in the queue, but party workers urged her to move ahead. Though reluctant, she eventually gave in.

Just as she entered the booth, a brief power outage delayed the process by a few minutes.

“The early turnout is encouraging. I am hopeful of a victory. The rest is in the hands of the people and God,” she told Onmanorama. As she left the school to other areas in the constituency, voters continued to stream into the polling station.

A few kilometres away, at Vempally Government School, part of Kaduthuruthy constituency, the booth-level officer expressed confidence that polling would cross 80 per cent. He attributed the strong turnout to the favourable weather, noting that voting had already crossed 30 per cent by 11 am. “We have also updated the rolls by removing those who have moved out. That, too, will reflect in the final percentage,” he said.

Outside the polling station, UDF workers were busy tallying voter turnout, informally estimating the margin for their candidate, Mons Joseph. “The morning weather is giving us hope. The outcome will be favourable,” said P D Sunny, a Kerala Congress leader.

Not far from there, at Vayala Vocational Higher Secondary School, police officers huddled together, discussing instructions received from senior officials to restrict camera access inside polling booths during visits by prominent figures. “We are taking precautions. There are no issues here, this is a peaceful booth,” said an officer on duty, declining to be named.

Yet, not all conversations were about turnout. Some residents voiced frustration over local issues. “There is a bridge nearby that was washed away in the 2018 floods. It was newly constructed, and now only the old structure remains,” said Sivan, a local resident. He alleged that little had been done over the years to rebuild the bridge, as it was standing on the border of Kanakkary and Kaduthuruthy grama panchayats. He pointed the blame at MLA Mons, adding that people were now hoping for change.

Meanwhile, in Pala, the site of one of the state's most closely watched contests, polling remained steady through the day, with authorities expecting turnout to match or even exceed the 76.46 per cent recorded in 2021.

A booth-level officer at Mundankal said that while the morning began under cloudy skies, the afternoon turned intensely hot. Despite this, voter turnout had reached around 50 per cent by 1 pm. A similar trend was visible at Bharananganam. “People rushed in to vote in the morning, but the numbers have dipped now. They are likely to pick up again by evening,” said the presiding officer.

Candidates across parties, UDF’s Mani C Kappan, LDF’s Jose K Mani, and BJP’s Shone George, spent the day visiting polling stations, attempting to mobilise support and ensure turnout among their voters.

However, in some interior parts of the district, the pattern differed. While many booths saw the usual morning surge, the flow of voters remained steady well into the afternoon. At Kochukottaram School in Pala, the presiding officer said queues persisted through the day, with turnout touching 60 per cent by afternoon.

A few kilometres away, in the quiet village of Akalakunnam in Puthuppally constituency, the queues had not thinned even by mid-afternoon. Voters continued to turn up in large numbers, pushing turnout beyond 65 per cent by 3 pm, reflecting sustained voter enthusiasm.