Polling for the first phase of simultaneous election to 10 lok Sabha and 70 Assembly seats spread over 19 districts in western and southern parts of the State would be held on Thursday.
An estimated 1.35 crore voters would decide the electoral fortune of 98 lok Sabha candidates and 673 Assembly candidates who are pitted in multi-cornered contest. The poll process will begin from 7 in the morning in 17,266 booths of which 1,601 are identified as vulnerable from the Maoist menace point of view.
The prominent leaders whose fate will be sealed in Thursday’s ballots are Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Speaker of Odisha Assembly PK Amat, former CMs Hemananda Biswal and Giridhar Gamango, former Union Minister Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Bhakta Das, Dillip Ray and Jual Oram, Rajya Sabha MP and former Indian Hockey captain Dillip Tirkey, BJP State president KV Singh Deo and six Ministers of the Naveen Patnaik Government.
While only six female candidates are in the fray for the 10 lok Sabha seats, 52 have joined the fray in 70 Assembly seats, representing only 8.6 per cent of the total candidates. The ten lok Sabha seats going to poll on Thursday are -- Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput, Bolangir, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Berhampur, Aska,Bargarh and Kandhmal.