Bhubaneswar: All eyes are on the results of the Dhamnagar by-elections with elaborate arrangements having been made for vote counting Sunday.
State Chief Electoral Office (CEO) S K Lohani said that tight security is in place for the counting of votes at Sanskruti Bhawan, located close to the collector’s office in Bhadrak town.
The counting of votes polled in 252 polling booths in the constituency on November 3 will begin at 8 am and the entire process is likely to be completed by 2 pm, he said.
Postal ballots will be counted in the first round, and votes polled in EVMs will be counted from 8.30 am onwards, Lohani said.
Fourteen counting tables have been arranged for the counting of votes as 1,64,465 of 2,38,417 (68.98 per cent) of eligible electors had exercised their franchise.
There will be 18 rounds of counting and VVPATs of randomly selected five booths will be taken up for cross-verification, he said.
The Election Commission has deputed an observer to oversee the counting process, and there will be one counting supervisor and one assistant at each table. In addition, one micro-observer of the central government will be deputed and that person will report to the observer, Lohani said.
Noting that arrangements have been made for the dissemination of round-wise results, Lohani said the counting agents nominated by candidates will also be present to observe the counting. Candidates or their election agents can also be present inside the counting hall.
Three-tier security arrangements are in place, with the central paramilitary forces manning the innermost layer, state armed police the second and state police the outermost one.
The result is anxiously awaited as a stiff contest is expected between ruling BJD candidate Abanti Das and BJP nominee Suryabanshi Suraj, the son of former legislator Bishnu Charan Sethi, whose death necessitated the by-election.
Apart from this, the candidature of BJD rebel and former MLA Rajendra Das as an Independent nominee has added colour to the poll battle.
He is expected to cut some BJD votes, while Suraj may get sympathy votes.
Meanwhile, Congress legislator of Jatani constituency, Suresh Routray, said that party candidate Baba Harekrushna Sethi, for whom he had campaigned extensively, might lose due to deeper pockets of the BJD and BJP.
Senior BJD leader and minister Pramila Mallick exuded confidence that party candidate Abanti Das, also a leader of a women self-help group, will win by a margin of over 20,000 votes.
State BJP president Samir Mohanty also hoped that Suraj will win the by-election.
Bishnu Charan Sethi as the BJP candidate had secured the Dhamnagar assembly segment by defeating his nearest rival Rajendra Das of the BJD by a margin of 4,625 votes in the 2019 elections.
PTI