SUNABEDA (KORAPUT):Sunabeda was chock-a-block on Sunday with political leaders of all the parties trying their best to woo voters on the last day of campaigning for election to Sunabeda Municipality.
The election to the Municipality having 25 Wards is set to witness a keen contest. This is the first election in Sunabeda Municipality after it was upgraded from Notified Area Council (NAC) in February last year. Of the total 78 candidates in the fray, the BJD has fielded 25, Congress 24 and BJP 25 candidates. Four Independents have also filed nominations.
Energy Minister Pranab Dash and Koraput MP Jhina Hikaka are camping in the area to oversee poll preparations. They also held door-to-door campaigning on Sunday and used the welfare schemes launched by the BJD-led State Government and clean image of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as the poll planks.
From Congress side, senior party leaders like Koraput MLA Krushna Sagaria, Jeypore MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati along with District Congress Committee president Minakhi Bahinipati campaigned throughout the day. The party, which hopes to bag maximum seats this time, used the chit fund scam as its main agenda to counter BJD’s ‘development’ plank.
On the other hand, the BJP roped in Pratap Sarangi and Sumant Pradhan to woo the voters. They sought votes banking on the ‘good governance’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last 10 months.
Political observers said this would be a neck-to-neck fight between the ruling BJD and Congress like the last General election.
Voting will be held in 43 booths of which, 14 are super-sensitive and 13 are sensitive. At least 37,576 voters will exercise their franchise and the security provisions have been reviewed by Collector Yamini Sarangi and SP CS Meena.