Kannur: What began as a routine delimitation exercise in Naduvil grama panchayat has quickly descended into brazen gerrymandering -- allegedly steered by the LDF from the shadows, with government officials executing it on the ground. Now, the Kerala High Court has stepped in.

With local body elections months away, the High Court on May 27, issued an interim order stating that the final delimitation at Naduvil is subject to the outcome of a writ petition filed by opposition members.

The Naduvil controversy isn’t just about the redrawing of ward boundaries -- flawed as it is, with fictitious streams and hills used to mark borders, 389 existing houses omitted, and 237 non-existent ones added, according to the panchayat secretary’s report to the Delimitation Commission. What is truly scandaling is the government sending two officials just for the hatch job.

Currently, the 19-ward Naduvil panchayat is controlled by the Congress-led UDF with 12 members; the LDF has seven. "All their efforts are to gain an upper edge in the panchayat but that won't happen even by their design," said Baby Odampallil, Congress member of the panchayat, who moved the High Court against the gerrymandering.

Delimitation is a constitutionally mandated exercise to redraw electoral boundaries, ensuring each ward within a panchayat has roughly the same number of houses, with a 10% margin. The term ‘gerrymandering' describes the biased redrawing of boundaries to benefit one party.

The brazen takeover
In November 2024, the Kerala Delimitation Commission -- headed by State Election Commissioner A Shajahan -- issued a draft notification raising the number of wards in Naduvil to 20 and invited public feedback. The draft was based on a report submitted by the then panchayat secretary, who was transferred the same month.

The UDF filed 20 objections regarding building numbers (not count of houses), and the LDF raised 13 regarding boundaries.
In January 2025, Delimitation Commission members Rathan U Kelkar, K Biju, S Harikishore, and K Vasuki -- all senior government secretaries -- announced at a meeting in Kannur that while all complaints would be heard, the ward boundaries would remain unchanged.

On March 13, Naduvil's stand-in secretary Subhas M G received a call from the Delimitation Commission, seeking updated residential building numbers.

The same week, the commission deputed Taliparamba GST officer Sunil Kumar M V to 'inquire' into the LDF's boundary complaints. "Instead of an inquiry, he redrew the boundaries of all 20 wards in two days," said petitioner Baby Odampallil. The GST officer usurped the secretary's responsibility.

On March 16, the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) deputed Taliparamba Block Development Officer-cum-Secretary K V Prakash as Naduvil’s new secretary in charge.

However, the panchayat board resisted the change in the last weeks of the financial year.

On April 2, Prakash arrived to join as secretary of Naduvil panchayat; but that day, Subhas, the in-charge secretary, was hospitalised and could not hand over charge.

Kannur Joint Director of Panchayats P J Arun invoked his special powers to depute an Internal Vigilance Officer to take over the charge and hand it over to Prakash the same day.

After taking over, Prakash returned only after a week, signed off on the GST officer's redrawn map, and left on April 17, handing back the secretary's post to Subhas. "He was sent only to sign on the flawed delimitation map drawn up by the GST officer, who must have got it from the LDF," said Baby Odampallil.

In a week, on April 23, Delimitation Commission Secretary S Josnamol, who is also the Joint Director of LSGD, issued the final delimitation notification, accepting Prakash's report as it is.

Panchayat secretary dissents
Panchayat secretary (in-charge) Subhas sent a detailed report to the Delimitation Commission on April 25, flagging major errors in the final notification, and concluding that: "Therefore... the map received from your office cannot be used."

As per the Delimitation Commission’s guidelines, the wards should be divided clockwise so that each subsequent ward shares boundaries. That has not been done. Wards no. 7 and 8 (Pottanplavu and Kanakakunnu), and wards no. 12 and 13 (Mandalam and Kokkai) do not share boundaries.

The eastern boundary of the proposed new ward Thavukunnu (no. 19) is marked as Bakiri Thodu. "But there is no such stream there," the report said.

The northern boundary of ward no. 12 (Mandalam) is shown as Mavunchal Mala. But that hill is in Vellad, ward no. 3.

"It is also brought to your notice that the northern boundary of the 13th ward (Kokkai) is marked as Madom Road- Kokkai Thodu," the secretary wrote. Neither the road nor the thodu (stream) is there.

Ghost houses
The IKM, an autonomous body under the LSG Department, counted 10,967 houses in the panchayat as of September 10, 2024 -- the cut-off date fixed by the commission.

Going by the Delimitation Commission's guidelines, each of the 20 wards of Naduvil should ideally have 548 houses, or within the 10% range of 493 to 603.

Secretary Subhas, who toured the panchayat before sending his report to the commission, wrote that most of the wards have fewer or more houses than the acceptable range in the final notification.

In ward 6 (Pathanpara), the final notification listed 456 houses -- below the acceptable level. But even in that, 65 houses are non-existent.

The same is the case in ward no. 2 (Kaniyanchal), where places of worship and community buildings are counted as residential houses to meet the required numbers.

In ward no. 8 (Kanakakunnu), 169 non-existing houses are added; in ward no. 20 (Vayattumparamba), 88 phantom houses are added. Similar trends are seen in six wards.

In contrast, in five wards, 389 existing houses are not included in the final notification.

Commission response
In reply to the panchayat secretary's detailed report, Commission Secretary Josnamol wrote back on April 25, asking him to retain the final delimitation report as it is -- barring minor adjustments to the boundaries of ward no. 13 (Kokkai) and ward no. 14 (Naduvil).

High Court action
Baby Odampallil's counsel, Adv Mohammed Shah -- a senior leader of the IUML -- said High Court Justice C S Dias, while taking up the petition, issued notices not just to the government and the Delimitation Commission, but also to GST officer Sunil Kumar and Taliparamba Block Development Officer Prakash.

A similar case of over- or under-reporting of houses, by more than 10%, has emerged in Kasaragod’s Udma grama panchayat, which is also under judicial scrutiny. "The High Court has ruled that the final delimitation in Udma panchayat will also be subject to the outcome of that petition," said Adv Shah. The two cases are posted for June 12.