Dhenkanal: Heavyweight leaders in the district exercised their franchise at their respective designated booths once voting started in this district at 7.00am in the morning.
MP candidate and Congress’ senior leader Kamakhya Prasad Singh Deo voted with his family members at booth No. 177 in Jubilee Town, UP School. BJP’s MP candidate Rudranarayan Pani and MLA nominee Krushna Chandra Patra cast their votes at booths No. 180 and booth No. 19 at Similia while BJD’s MLA candidate Sudhir Kumar Samal cast his vote at Meena Bazaar UP School, respectively.
Four-time MP from Dhenkanal and Editor of Odia daily ‘Dharitri’ and English daily ‘Orissa Post’, Tathagata Satpathy and CEO of the same publications Adyasha Satpathy cast their votes at Kunjakant’s booth No. 171
Polling began since 7.00am and there were large number of excited youngsters were seen turning out in large numbers in the booths. Huge amount of enthusiasm was seen amongst the voters.
Proper arrangements were made to ensure that physically-challenged and elder citizens could cast their votes seamlessly.
Pink booths and Model booths were the prime attractions here. They were designed to attract voters. In order to conduct the polling process peacefully, the district administration and police deployed armed forces at all the booths.
However, voting got delayed at some booths due to glitches in the EVMs and VVPATs. After glitches were rectified, voting resumed at these booths.
So far there has been no report of any untoward incidents. This suggests that peaceful polling is going on at all booths.