Polling was by and large peaceful in all the eight urban local bodies (UlBs) to which elections were held on Tuesday. The average voter turnout was recorded at 72 per cent. State Election Commissioner (SEC) Rabi Narayan Senapati said there were no reports of any untoward incident from any of the eight places during the polling which had started at 8 am and concluded at 5 pm.
He said the counting of votes would begin at 8 am on Wednesday amidst tight security arrangements and the results would be announced later in the day. Dharmagarh NAC recorded the highest polling of 80 per cent. Elaborate security arrangements had been made to ensure smooth polling in the 183 booths identified as sensitive. Special security arrangements were made in 115 sensitive booths and 18 highly sensitive booths where CCTV cameras had been installed to monitor the polling proceedings.
A total of 183 presiding officers and 549 polling officers were engaged in the polling. The EVMs sealed the fate of 469 candidates contesting in a total of 129 wards. All EVMs were stored in strong rooms.
The UlBs that went to polls were Sunabeda, Paradip and Belpahar Municipalities and Dharamgarh, Balimela, Daspalla, Redhakhol and Tusura NACs. Dharamgarh, Tusura and Daspalla are the newly constituted UlBs. Elections to another newly-formed UlB, Ranpur NAC, have been deferred to May 5.