KENDRAPARA: The Election Commission has decided to monitor 143 critical polling booths in the district through web-casting.
Live videos from 143 pooling booths will be directly monitored by the poll panel through web-casting, informed Sub-Collector of Kendrapara Sanjay Mishra.
The entire exercise will be closely monitored in the district control room and those at the office of the Chief Electoral officer office in Bhubaneswar. “We have decided to cover 28 polling booths in Patkura, 23 in Kendrapara, 28 in Aul, 33 in Rajnagar and 31 in Mahakalapada constituencies under the web-cast monitoring process,” said the Sub-Collector.
Mishra said, “We have installed CCTV cameras in 28 polling booths. The administration has also procured solar lanterns for all the 1,438 polling stations spread across the district.”
Kendrapara Parliamentary constituency, which consists of seven Assembly segments of Kendrapara, Rajnagar, Aul, Mahakalapada and Patkura besides Salipur and Mahanga in Cuttack district, will go to polls in the fourth and final phase on April 29. The prominent candidates in fray for the Lok Sabha seat include BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda, cine star and Rajya Sabha Member Anubhav Mohanty and Congress leader and senior lawyer Dharanidhar Nayak.
While polling will be held in six of the seven Assembly segments under the constituency, elections in Patkura has been countermanded following the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agarwalla on April 20. The Assembly seat will go to polls on May 19.
Kendrapara has witnessed a month-long high voltage campaigns by State and national leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Piyush Goyal, Raj Babbar and Sharmistha, daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also vigorously canvased in favour of BJD candidates and even spent a night in Kendrapara.
Meanwhile, Baijayant’s election agent Jyoti Prakash Ghose has urged the Chief Election Officer for deployment of additional Central paramilitary forces at certain sensitive booths in the Lok Sabha constituency.