Bubaneswar, Feb 11: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has invited suggestions over the preliminary booth list for the upcoming urban polls in the State in the all party meeting convened in the Capital City on Thursday.
As per the draft document, there are 699 booths in 219 polling centres spread over 67 wards of the city and more than 700027 voters will cast their votes.
“As per the provisions, booth identification list is out. Suggestions and views of all the political parties have been invited over the proposed list. Representatives of political parties have been asked to submit their suggestions in prescribed format by February 12 (Saturday). The final booth list will be published on February 14,” said Swain.
Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Bhubaneswar, Prafulla Kumar Swain chaired the meeting over locations of booths and ward wise booth distribution. However, the opposition leaders have expressed their dissatisfaction over the process.
“Everything has been fixed earlier. The all party meeting was only a formality. We have been given only 2-3 days to put forth our demands and the period is too short to find any solution,” said BJP leader Harekrushna Khuntia.
“The State government is not at all interested to listen anything from the Opposition. The only solution is to face them in the election,” said Khuntia.
“The officers are not sure about their jurisdiction and they are carrying out some instructions only. Delimitation of wards has been done in the ruling party’s favour and no constitutional procedures have been followed in this regard,” says Congress leader Sivanand Roy.
On the other hand, BJD refuted the charges by the Opposition.
“The all party meeting has been called as per the instruction by the State Election Commissioner. BJD has participated in the meeting as another political party and we have nothing to do with the development,” said BJD spokesperson Sulata Deo.
