Athagarh Sub-Collector Madhusudan Mishra, who is the Returning Officer for the Badamba and Athagarh Assembly constituencies, rearranged seats in his office chamber before filing of nomination papers for the general elections this time in order to avoid superstitious arguments of candidates to sit facing the east while filing their nominations.
Notably, the then Returning Officer here Rajesh Pravakar Patil (now Mayurbhanj Collector) had faced a peculiar situation in the 2009 elections when BJD candidate Ranendra Pratap Swain forcibly occupied a seat in his chamber arranged for Poll Observers telling that he must sit there as per the saying of a religious saint to sit facing the east during filing of his nominations.
Patil had faced a tough time to make understand Swain, but the latter didn’t listen to him and continued to occupy the Poll Observer’s seat facing towards the east.
Keeping this in view, the present RO made the sitting arrangements in such a way that all candidates during the submission of their nominations would be sitting facing the east.