The steel city witnessed a heavy turnout of voters on the poll day on Thursday for both the Rourkela and Raghunathpali Assembly seats. Source said, for the Rourkela constituency, the total turnout was 1,22,910, of which male voters accounts for 65,362, whereas the female voters’ number stands at 57,548. The total turnout percentage was 66.32 per cent.
In 2009 election, the total turnout was 86,488 out of 1,80,969 voters. Similarly, in Raghunathpali constituency, a total of 1,15,251 voters turned up to cast their vote, registering a total turnout of 70.31 percent.
Of these, the number of male voter is 65,163 and female voter is 50,088. In 2009, a total of 77,536 people out of 1,50,781 voters had cast their vote. Political observers attributed the heavy voters’ turnout to the anti-incumbency factor. Thus, the fates of both sitting BJD MlAs Sarada Nayak and Subrat Tarai hang in balance, they said.