With just a day now left for the prestigious electoral battle in the Patkura Assembly constituency in Kendrapada district on Saturday (July 20), official campaigning for the polls came to an end on Thursday evening.
The State’s three major political parties, the BJD, the BJP and the Congress, further intensified their campaigning on the last day.
Though the election is expected to witness a stiff fight between BJD candidate Sabitri Agarwalla, wife of late Bed Prakash Agarwalla, and BJP heavyweight Bijay Mohapatra, the Congress has also fielded its nominee Jayanta Kumar Mohanty.
On Wednesday, BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had visited the constituency and appealed to the voters to support the BJD candidate and assured the people of Patkura that he would personally look after the area. Earlier, BJP heavyweights, including Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Chandra Sarangi and Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi had visited Patkura to campaign for their party candidate.
Congress State president Niranjan Patnaik and senior party leader Narasingha Mishra also campaigning for their party candidate Mohanty, who is contesting for the seat for a second time.
While voting will be held on July 20, counting of votes will take place on July 24.
As many as 2,44,747 voters have been enrolled for the upcoming Patkura Assembly polls scheduled to be held on July 20, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said.
The polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm at 309 booths. A total of 10 candidates (9 male and one female) are in the fray for the poll.
Out of the total voters, 1,27,431 are male, 1,17,306 are female and 10 belong to the third gender. The ECI has deployed 1,700 polling personnel to conduct the election.
As many as 138 booths have been identified as critical polling stations while webcasting will be held at 31 booths and videography at 15.
Micro observers will be deployed at 52 critical polling stations and CCTV cameras will be installed at 40 such booths.
State Chief Electoral Officer Surendra Kumar said that indelible ink would be applied on the middle finger of left hand of the voters during the polling. In the case of re-election at any booth, the ink would be applied on the ring finger, he said.
