Today’s polling will seal the fate of 28 candidates for the Lok Sabha and 191 candidates for the Assembly seats in mostly the south Odisha, dominated by the BJD in the 2014 elections.

The four Lok Sabha constituencies where polling began at 7am are Nabarangpur, Koraput, Kalahandi and Berhampur. Polling also simultaneously commenced for the 28 Assembly seats falling under these four parliamentary constituencies.

CEO office sources here said the polling began peacefully in the area notwithstanding a poll boycott call by the Left wing extremism and the authority had deployed central paramilitary forces in the all the sensitive booths in the Maoist infested areas in Nabarangpur, Koraput and Kalahandi districts.

Reports reaching here said by 10am, about 10 per cent polling has been reported from the Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies and a large number of voters were seen in the long line before the polling booths to cast their ballots.

However, at many places, the voting was delayed and stopped in the midway due to a technical snag in the EVM and VVPAT machines.

Altogether, 60,03,707 voters including 30,30,222 female voters would exercise their franchise today at 7,233 polling booths out of which as many as 2,375 booths are considered as sensitive booths where the CRPF forces were deployed.

The authority had installed CCTV cameras webcasting and videography in the hypersensitive booths. Micro observers are being posted at 408 booths. At least 29 platoons of CRPF have been deployed in the area.

 
Image credit: UNI