Thursday will see local body elections across the district. About 28.6 lakh voters will cast votes at 3,054 polling stations from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. People will elect representatives for municipalities and three-tier panchayats. A total of 6,724 candidates are contesting. A 48-hour ban on alcohol will start from 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 9. December 13, the counting day, will also be a dry day. Among the 3,054 polling booths, 2,749 are in panchayats and 305 in municipalities. Each booth can hold up to 1,300 voters. Security is tight. Authorities have identified 284 polling stations as sensitive. These mainly cover Palakkad, Chittoor-Thattamangalam, and Cherpulassery municipalities, plus 60 grama panchayats. Sensitive stations face issues like political clashes and overcrowding. To monitor these, 180 booths will have live webcasting. Overall, 4,500 police personnel are deployed. The team includes 25 deputy superintendents, 40 inspectors, and 300 sub-inspectors. A 140-strong Central paramilitary company is also stationed. Each web-casted sensitive booth will get an extra police officer. Four-officer teams will watch critical zones. For Maoist-affected Attappady, 500 more police officers will join. The district will use 4,366 control units and 12,393 ballot units. Panchayat machines will have one control and three ballot units, while municipality machines will have one control and one ballot unit. Voters can use any of nine Election Commission-approved IDs, including election ID cards, voter slips, government IDs, Aadhaar, passports, driving licences, or PAN cards. In 93 wards of six panchayats near Tamil Nadu, ballot labels will also be printed in Tamil to assist voters. Election materials will start reaching polling stations on Wednesday morning.