BARGARH: Contrary to speculation of voters’ fatigue due to three elections in a year in Bijepur, the turnout for the by-election to the Assembly constituency on Monday was marginally less than the General Elections held a few months back.
At least 78.96 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the election at 285 polling stations against 79.28 pc voting in the General Elections and 72 pc in the bypoll in February last year. Voting started at 7 am with glitches detected in one VVPAT machine and continued till 5 pm. DIG of Police (Northern Range), Himanshu Lal said polling was smooth across the constituency and no untoward incident was reported.
After the election, the fate of five candidates including BJD’s Rita Sahu, BJP candidate Sanat Kumar Gartia and Congress’ Dillip Kumar Panda has been sealed in the EVMs. While Rita cast her vote in a polling booth under Barpali NAC, her BJP rival Sanat exercised his franchise in a polling booth in Bijepur NAC and Congress candidate Dillip voted in Bijepur block.
Confident of her win, Rita said she has worked hard for the by-election and the constituency would see development under the BJD rule. Sanat was equally confident that people would vote BJP to wrest the seat from ruling BJD. Dillip said the Congress has reposed confidence in him and he is fighting the election optimistically. He would be with the people whatever the poll result, he added.
Counting for the by-election will be held on October 24. Of 285 polling stations, 129 had been identified as critical and six as vulnerable. While CCTV cameras were installed in 14 polling booths, the polling was videographed at 16 booths in the constituency. Similarly, web casting was done from 28 polling booths and micro-observers had been deployed at 77 booths.