As announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday, Odisha will go to polls in two phases, on April 10 and April 17.Counting of the votes for the entire country will take place on a single day, May 16. The model code of conduct came into force immediately after the announcement of the election schedule.
Filing of nominations in the State for the first phase polls would be held from March 15 to 22. Scrutiny of the nomination papers would be on March 24 while the date of withdrawal of nomination papers would be within March 26.
For the second phase polls, the date of filing of nomination papers would be held from March 19 to 26. Scrutiny of the nomination papers would be on March 27 while the date of withdrawal of nomination papers would be within March 29.
In the first phase, polling for the 10 lok Sabha constituencies would be held on April 10 for Bargarh, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Balangir, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Aska, Brahmapur and Koraput and the 70 Assembly constituencies coming under these 10 lok Sabha constituencies.
The second phase polling on April 17 would be held for the 11 lok Sabha seats of Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Baleswar, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Bhubaneswar, and the 77 Assembly constituencies coming under them.
The State has sought additional Central security forces to ensure free and fair lok Sabha and Assembly elections on April 10 and April 17, State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Mona Sharma said here on Wednesday.
“We have already 89 companies of Central Para-military Force in the State. We have sought additional force to conduct free and fair elections in both the Maoist-hit areas and other parts of the State,” Sharma told mediapersons.
Nearly, three lakh Government employees besides security personnel would be engaged in the exercise. The polling is being conducted on one date in all the Maoist-hit areas of the State and in adjoining areas in other States, Sharma informed.
“We have already identified the sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths in the State and all the District Collectors and superintendents of police (SP) have been asked to place their requirements,” she said.
She further infomed that a total of 2,88,80,850 people are now eligible to cast their votes in Odisha. Of them, 1,50,38,350 are males, 1,38,41,394 are females and 1106 voters come under others category.
Similarly, 70 lakh new voters have been added this time of which 10 lakh voters’ age was between 18 years to 19 years.