India News | Odisha Records over 60 Per Cent Voter Turnout Till 5 Pm

Bhubaneswar, May 20 (PTI) Odisha recorded 60.55 per cent voter turnout till 5 pm in the polling for five Lok Sabha constituencies and 35 Assembly segments on Monday, officials said.

Voting started at 7 am in Aska, Kandhamal, Bargarh, Bolangir and Sundergarh parliamentary constituencies along with 35 assembly segments within the jurisdiction of these Lok Sabha seats.

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Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are being held simultaneously in Odisha.

Voting in a booth under Kantamal assembly segment under Kandhamal Parliamentary Constituency was stopped after some people created a disturbance, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Odisha, N B Dhal, said.

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One presiding officer of a booth in the Kantamal assembly segment was taken into custody by police after some irregularities were found at the polling station, Dhal said.

Regarding the murder of a man near Sarsara under Sadar police limits in Bargarh district, the CEO said: "It is not a poll violence, but an incident of crime had taken place outside the polling station."

"The local police have managed the situation as the incident created some tension in the booth. polling was not affected because of the incident," he said.

The deceased was an auto-rickshaw driver carrying some voters to the polling booth. While the family members claimed it was a political murder, police said personal enmity was the reason behind the crime.

Dhal said polling was peaceful in all the 9,162 booths.

He said some faulty EVMs were replaced.

Officials said of the five LS seats, the highest 66.14 per cent polling was recorded in Bargarh parliamentary seat followed by Sundergarh (61.53%), Bolangir (61.35%), Kandhanmal (57.46%) and Aska (55.65%).

Among the 35 assembly constituencies, Sonepur recorded 71.35 per cent polling, while the lowest polling of 47.80 per cent was recorded at Surada assembly segment in Ganjam district.

Dhal said that industrial assembly segments like Brajrajnagar and Jharsuguda and urban areas like Rourkela also witnessed good voter turnout.

Till 3 pm 60.55 per cent of the over 79.69 lakh voters had exercised their franchise, officials said.

Officials said that a woman polling official fainted in a booth under the Sundergarh Lok Sabha seat.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)