Bhubaneswar, Mar 21 (Agency) As many as 40,55,053 voters will exercise their franchise in the elections for three Municipal Corporations, 47 Municipalities and 59 NACs in Odisha scheduled to be held on March 24 next. State Election Commission(SEC) sources here on Monday said while 569 candidates are contesting for the posts of Mayor/ Chairpersons, 5842 candidates are in the fray for the posts of Corporators/ Councillors. Elections would be held in 1672 wards in Municipality and NAC and 165 wards in three Municipal corporations- Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Berhampur. Necessary arrangements have been made for the voters to exercise their franchise in 2989 booths of Municipality/NAC and 1384 booths in three Municipal corporations.
Candidates in three wards in Berhampur Municipal Corporation and 58 wards in other Municipalities and NACs in the state have been declared unopposed. Since no candidates have filed their nominations in one ward each in Pattamundai Municipality, Kamakhyanagar and Purusottampur NAC the state government will nominate candidates to these posts as per the law since these posts are of reserve category. In the elections, 16 candidates are in the fray each for the post of Mayor for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation and the post of Chairperson of Baripada Municipality.
Similarly, 18 candidates are in the fray for the post of Jeypore Municipality Chairperson in the Koraput district. Two EVMs will be installed in each booth — one for electing Mayor/Chairperson and the other one for electing Councillor/ Corporators. Voting for the election will start at 8 AM on March 24 and will continue till 5 PM and the counting will be taken up on March 26. In total 22,000 polling officials will be deployed for the smooth conduct of the election. The campaigning for the election to the civic bodies will end at 5 PM on March 22 next. State Police have deployed 195 platoons of the police force for the smooth conduct of the election. While 30 platoons of the police force will be deployed for the election to the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, 20 platoons will be deployed for Cuttack Municipal Corporation and 10 platoons for Berhampur Municipal Corporation.
As many as 300 mobile parties would be on duty of which 109 would be deployed in three Municipal Corporations. One or two striking forces would also be deployed in every police station of the ULB going to elections. This apart one or two platoons of police forces would be kept ready in each district headquarter to meet any eventualities. There would be five border ceiling points. An Inspector and three officers would remain in charge of each border ceiling point and one-fourth force would be on round the clock duty. Odisha government has declared March 24, the polling day, as an official holiday for the employees of the state government offices and Executive magisterial courts (except Treasury and Sub Treasury) located within three Municipal Corporation areas and 106 Municipalities/NAC to enable the employees to cast their votes.