Bhubaneswar: Campaigning for the fourth phase general elections came to an end Saturday evening for six Lok Sabha and 41 assembly seats of Odisha.
Polling in these seats will be held Monday, April 29. The six Lok Sabha seats to go to polls are – Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur.
This will be the final phase of polling in Odisha, except for Patkura assembly seat where voting is slated to be held May 19 following the death of the BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agrawalla.
Electioneering had reached a feverish pitch for this phase as a galaxy of leaders from parties such as the BJP, the
Congress and the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) undertook tours of the constituencies, mostly in coastal Odisha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah crisscrossed the poll-bound segments campaigning for BJP candidates. Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari and others also hit the campaign trail for the saffron party.
The Congress campaign was buoyed by party president Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Balasore in the last leg. Besides, senior party leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Susmita Deb, Raj Babbar and T S Singhdeo toured the poll-bound areas.
For the ruling BJD, party president and state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik undertook extensive tours of the
poll-bound areas and held roadshows. He is seeking re-election for the fifth term.
The fourth phase polling will decide the electoral fortune of 388 candidates – 52 in Lok Sabha seats and 336 in
41 assembly constituencies.
Prominent among the hopefuls include BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda (Kendrapara LS seat) and state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik (Bhandaripokhari assembly seat).
As many as 95,14,883 voters, including 46,05,694 women, are eligible to exercise their franchise in the fourth
phase of balloting in the state.
The state has 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats.
(PTI)