Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 16 - The Kerala assembly Wednesday unanimously passed two bills - the Kerala Panchayati Raj (Second Amendment) Bill 2009 and the Kerala Municipality (Amendment) Bill 2009 - that will now reserve 50 percent seats in local government bodies for women.

Last month, the liaison committee of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) had asked the V.S. Achuthanandan government to see that the law is passed and a special assembly session was called for this purpose.

The special session ends Thursday.

There are 20,554 elected representatives in Kerala currently and 33.33 percent of the seats are reserved for women. There are also certain general seats that women can contest. There are around 7,000 women representatives at present.

Kerala has 999 'gram panchayats' (village councils), 152 block panchayats, 14 district panchayats, 53 municipalities and five corporations.

The polls to these local governments are slated to take place in September next year, when 50 percent of the seats would go to women.