Voting time tweaked in 13 Assembly seats

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has modified voting time in 13 Assembly constituencies, which will go to polls in the second phase, in view of law and order situation. As per the notification issued on Tuesday for the second phase elections, five Parliamentary and 35 Assembly constituencies will go to polls on April 18. The Lok Sabha seats for which elections will be held are Bargarh, Sundargarh (ST), Balangir, Kandhamal and Aska. 

In Bargarh Parliamentary constituency, voters in Bijepur, Baragarh, Attabira, Brajarajnagar and Jharsuguda can exercise their franchise from 7 am to 6 pm while constituents in Padampur and Bhatli will vote between 7 am and 4 pm. People in Raghunathpali and Bonai Assembly seats, that fall under Sundargarh Lok Sabha constituency, will vote from 7 am to 4 pm. The voting timing in the rest five Assembly seats of the constituency is up to 6 pm.

Similarly, voters in Patnagarh and Kantabanji under Balangir Parliamentary constituency will cast their ballots from 7 am to 4 pm while the polling timing is up to 6 pm in rest of the Assembly segments.   Since Kandhamal Parliamentary constituency has maximum number of sensitive booths, the voting in all Assembly seats here will be held between 7 am and 4 pm. Nearly 250 booths in the constituency are hypersensitive.

Voters in all seven Assembly constituencies in Aska Lok can exercise their franchise from 7 am to 6 pm. Taking presence of Left Wing Extremists and political rivalry into consideration, the ECI will accordingly deploy security personnel in sensitive booths. Filing of nomination papers for second phase, which began from Tuesday, will continue till March 26. While scrutiny has been scheduled for March 27, candidates can withdraw their nominations by March 29.       

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Surendra Kumar said the first level randomisation of EVMs has been completed in 26 districts. The process is expected to be completed in the rest four districts in next couple of days. “After the bar code scanning of all EVMs, which will be started shortly, the voting machines will be sent to strong rooms on the day of final publication of candidates’ list in the respective phases,” he told reporters.