BHUBANESWAR: With the deadline for submission of nominations only a day away, the nomination process picked up across the State. By end of Monday, 83,983 nomination papers were filed across 30 districts.
While Balasore topped the list with 7,318 nominations, Jharsuguda was down at the bottom with just 515 nominations filed for ward members, sarpanch, panchayat samiti and Zilla Parishad member posts.
Besides Balasore, Cuttack with 5,254 nominations, Ganjam with 5,554 and Mayurbhanj with 5023 nominations led the way.
State Election Commission sources said at least five districts reported very tardy nomination process as the entire nominations remained below 1,000 in each of these districts. Malkangiri (674), Deogath (702), Boudh (708) and Gajapati (914) recorded very low nomination filing.
In Maoist-hit Malkangiri district, there were just 39 nominations filed for 15 Zilla Parishad member positions while just about 108 papers were submitted for panchayat samiti and 149 for sarpanch posts. For ward members, only about 378 nomination papers were filed.
In Deogarh where there are seven Zilla Parishad member posts up for grabs, just about 14 nominations have been submitted. Similar is the case in Boudh where only about 20 nominations were filed for nine Zilla Parishad posts.