The first phase of the three-tier pancahayat election in Odisha for 200 zilla parishad seats, 1,669 sarpanch posts, 1,669 samiti member seats and 22,379 ward member posts in 71 blocks of 30 districts will be held on Wednesday.
State Election Commission (SEC) secretary RN Sahu said that polling will be held from 7 am till 1 pm on February 16. The rural polls will be held in five phases from February 16 to 24. The SEC said that the centralised counting of votes will take place on February 26, 27 and 28. Over 2.79 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise in these elections.
Elaborate security arrangements have been made with focus on left wing extremism infected districts where the Maoists have appealed to the people to boycott panchayat elections.
Special security arrangements have been made in the districts of Malakngiri, Koraput, Kalahanadi, Bolangir, Rayagada and Kandhamal in view of the Maoist presence in those districts, said a senior police officer engaged in anti-Maoist operations.
SEC, Odisha, A P Padhi said the arrangements have been made for video recording at sensitive booths and CCTVs have been installed at counting and strong rooms where ballot boxes to be stored after the polling.
The elections will not be conducted in seven Gram Panchayats – four in Remuna in Balasore, two in Odanga in Nayagarh and one in Bijepur in Bargarh district- as these GPs have been included in the notified area councils.
All MLAs, MPs and senior leaders of three major parties like BJD, BJP and Congress campaigned in different parts of the state. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who did not campaign for the rural poll in 2017, did not do so for his party candidates this time too.
The parties took the help of cine artistes to woo voters. While Ollywood popular actor Varsha Priyadarshini campaigned for BJD candidate in Brahmapur panchayat of Bhadrak block, another actor Asrumochan Mohanty campaigned for Jagya Hentala, BJP’s zilla parishad candidate from zone-2 of Borigumma block in Koraput.
Other Ollywood actors including Tamanna, Poonam and Debashis campaigned for the BJD with local MLAs. Chhattisgarh Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhan campaigned for the Congress candidates in Rayagada’s Kasipur and Tikiri, besides in Bisamcuttack and Munniguda.
This time, the polls are being held with caste at the forefront with political parties competing among themselves to give more representation to the Other Backward Caste (OBC) community who constitute at least 54 per cent of the total population.
