Violence, Booth-Capturing Mar Odisha Panchayat Poll Phase Three
Bhubaneswar, Feb 20: Violence and booth capturing marred the third phase of election to Panchayati raj institutions in Odisha on Sunday despite the deployment of heavy security personnel for free and fair elections.
Voting ended at 1 PM, but in many areas, polling still continued as there were many people in the queue at the scheduled time of close. Police sources said as many as 240 platoons of force, 1625 mobile patrolling parties alongside district police officers were deployed all over the state for the smooth conduct of the election.
The State Election Commission(SEC) decided to conduct re-polling in 45 booths after the election was disrupted during the first phase (25 booths) and in 20 booths in the second phase of polling.
Reports reaching here said three electronic media persons were assaulted by miscreants in Bachhol Panchayat of Binjharpur block in Jajpur district while they were covering alleged booth-capturing on Sunday.
In another incident in the same panchayat, the miscreants looted the ballot boxes from booths No four and six. The ballot box of Booth No six was thrown into a pond. Voting in both the booths was stopped after the incident. In booth No six of Soti village of Goleipur Panchayat in Korei block, the Block Development Officer was heckled by the miscreants after he reached there on getting information about booth rigging.
Miscreants pelted stones at the security personnel in front of booth No 14 of Zari Panchayat in Jajpur district after two groups of people clashed over booth-capturing and police tried to intervene.
SEC Secretary R N Sahu said polling was going on smoothly all over the state except in the Jajpur district and action will be taken against the people involved in disrupting the election process after receiving reports from the District Collector.
Sahu said till 12 noon over 45 percent voter turnout was reported. Elections for the third phase of Panchayatiraj Institutions started at 7 AM on Sunday in 1382 panchayats for 171 Zilla Parishad zones spread over 63 blocks in 29 districts of the state.
As many as 679 candidates are contesting for the Zilla Parishad seats, and 2,773 Out of 18,495 booths have been declared sensitive. The first phase of polling was conducted on February 16 and the second phase on February 18. While 77.2 percent of polling was recorded in the first phase, the figure went up to 78.3 percent in the second phase.
