Litmus test for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
Bhubaneswar, Apr 17 ..The electoral fortune of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and four of his council of ministers besides Opposition leader Narashingh Mishra will be put to test as Odisha goes for second phase elections in five Lok Sabha and 35 Assembly elections.
All together, 279 candidates are in the fray in the five Lok Sabha and 35 Assembly seats. Although all the seats will witness a multi cornered contest but the real battle for ballots would be mostly confined to the ruling BJD, the BJP and the Congress.
All eyes are on Bijepur Assembly seat in Western Odisha where BJD supremo and Chief minister Naveen Patnaik is seeking election besides his home constituency Hinjili seat in South Odisha.
For the first time in the electoral history, the Chief Minister is seeking election from two Assembly seats. Mr Patnaik who has been winning the Hinjili assembly seat since 2000 Assembly elections, this time decided to test his credibility and popularity in Western Odisha by contesting the Bijepur Assembly seat, a Congress bastion till 2014.
In the last elections in 2014, the ruling BJD had captured four of the five Lok sabha seat and almost swept the assembly elections by winning 24 of the 35 Assembly seats.
The BJP had won one Lok Sabha seat (Sundargarh-ST) and four Assembly seats while the Congress bagged five seats and the CPI and Samata Kranti Dal one seat each.
The five Lok Sabha seats going for poll tomorrow are Bargarh, Sindargarh(ST), Bolangir, Kandhmal and Aska. Polling will be held simultaneously in 35 Assembly seats falling under these five parliamentary constituencies.
About 76.93 lakh voters would exercise their franchise in the second phase spread over 9,117 polling booths. In the first phase, 76.09 per cent of total 60.03 lakh voters had cast their ballots on April 11 last.
Chief Electoral Officer Surendra Kumar said, 60,000 polling personnel have been pressed into service for the second phase polling.
Central Armed police forces have been deployed in 748 polling booths, web casting will be done in 883 booths while CCTV has been installed in 1,723 booths and micro observers will be deployed at 822 booths.
Out of 9,117 booths, as many as 739 booths are hypersensitive and 3,701 booths are considered as critical where additional police forces have been deployed for smooth conduct of the election.
Nearly 60 platoons of police forces had been deployed and all precaution has taken in the 20 booths in Maoist infested areas considered as highly sensitive in view of the poll boycott call given by the Red rebels.
The campaigning for the second phase saw a bloody violence when two unidentified assailants shot dead BJP leader from Khordha Mangul Jena on April 14 night. The state government had ordered a CB probe into the murder while the BJP observed Khordha bandh on April 15 in protest against the gruesome murder and stringent action against the culprits.Agency