  We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of a three state kinetic exchange
model of opinion formation, where switches between extreme states are possible,
depending on the value of a parameter $q$. The mean field dynamical equations
are derived and analysed for any $q$. The fate of the system under the
evolutionary rules used in \cite{BCS} shows that it is dependent on the value
of $q$ and the initial state in general. For $q=1$, which allows the extreme
switches maximally, a quasi-conservation in the dynamics is obtained which
renders it equivalent to the voter model. For general $q$ values, a "frozen"
disordered fixed point is obtained which acts as an attractor for all initially
disordered states. For other initial states, the order parameter grows with
time $t$ as $\exp[\alpha(q) t]$ where $\alpha = \frac{1-q}{3-q}$ for $q\neq 1$
and follows a power law behaviour for $q=1$. Numerical simulations using a
fully connected agent based model provide additional results like the system
size dependence of the exit probability and consensus times that further
accentuate the different behaviour of the model for $q=1$ and $q\neq 1$. The
results are compared with the non-equilibrium phenomena in other well known
dynamical systems.
