MALKANGIRI: Thursday will be a historic day for residents of Chitrakonda block in the erstwhile cut-off region of Swabhiman Anchal. After 10 long years of wait, they will finally get to participate in the voting process and choose their representatives.
Chitrakonda, a red dot in Odisha’s Maoist counter-insurgency map not long ago, will go to polls in the final phase of the three-tier panchayat elections.
An upbeat Malkangiri administration has put in place heavy security arrangements to ensure that the elections are incident-free. Since the people of Chitrakonda will be exercising their voting rights after nearly a decade, heavy deployment of security forces including SOG, DVF and BSF has been made for the smooth conduct of polls. The district administration will also use drone-fitted cameras to keep a close watch on the polling process.
On Wednesday, voters of Maoist-infested areas were ferried by boats to their respective booths by the administration. As many as 54 booths have been relocated in view of the Maoist threat. The administration also arranged a special launch to send 15 polling parties to three panchayats. While 11 polling parties were despatched to the Maoist den of Jantri panchayat, three were sent to Andrapalli and one to Jodamba.
Official sources said after reaching Ghanabeda, the polling parties will spend the night at the local BSF camp and leave for their respective booths in the morning. Malkangiri SP Nitesh Wadhwani has requested media personnel not to venture beyond the police camp at Jantapai for security reasons.
Elections will be held in 18 panchayats and two zilla parishad (ZP) zones under Chitrakonda. A total of 41,582 voters will exercise their franchise in 222 booths of which 81 are sensitive and 60 hypersensitive. A total of 342 candidates are contesting the polls in Chitrakonda including seven for two ZP zones, 59 sarpanch, and 41 samiti member posts.