Bhubaneswar, Apr 18: The number of women voters in the four Lok Sabha segments - Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput, and Berhampur, which are going to polls in the first phase scheduled on May 13, are more than men, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Odisha Nikunja Bihari Dhal today.
Addressing a presser, Dhal said a total of 62,84,649 voters including 31,87,771 women and 30,96,243 men are to exercise their franchise in the first phase of the voting. A total of 7,289 polling stations are there in these four Parliamentary constituencies.
Notably, elections to four Lok Sabha constituencies (Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput, and Berhampur) and 28 Assembly seats in Odisha will be held May 13 from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
He further added that as many as 587 complaints were received through the C-Vigil app from these four parliamentary constituencies out of which 582 complaints have been resolved. However, a total of 3,873 complaints have received from across Odisha, mostly of which are from Puri, Khordha, Cuttack and Jajpur, and 3,854 have been resolved till yesterday.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has appointed three observers for four Lok Sabha segemmnets that are going to polls in the first phase. They will monitor the entire election process, check the compliance of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), security arrangements, and expenses of the contesting candidates separately.
The voting time has been changed in Maoist hit areas for the safety of the voters. A total of 10 companies of Border Security Force (BSF), five companies of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) have been deployed to maintain law and order situation, he added.
In view of the prevailing heat wave conditions across the state, broad range of arrangements have been made for smooth conduct of the elections. Directions have been given to keep ORS and sufficient drinking water at every polling booth. Similarly, ambulance will also be present at every booth. Polling officials have been provided training to deal with sun-stroke or heatstroke, Dhal said.
In the all-party meeting held today, the CEO requested all the political parties not to hold big rallies during the filling of nomination.
Since the Model Code of Conduct came into effect, various items worth Rs 118.65 crore including Rs 2.7 crore cash, drugs worth Rs 18.19 crore, Rs 43.69 crore worth of marijuana and brown sugar, and Rs 7.17 crore worth of gold have been seized, he added.
