Elections 2019: First Phase voting for 4 LS and 28 Assembly seats begins in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Voters in large numbers including women turned up at the polling booths across the State today where the first phase polling for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections began this morning.

Voting which started at around 7 am in the morning across 4 Lok Sabha and 28 Assembly Constituencies witnessed largely peaceful polling amidst a few reports of EVM glitch at a number of booths in Malkangiri and Gajapati districts.

As per the report EVM machine at a number of booths in Govindpalli and chitrakonda areas reported technical glitch causing a delay in voting process. The discrepancy sparked resentment among the voters for quite sometime. Similarly, EVM issue in Booth No. 152 in Gajapati also delayed the casting of votes.

In Koraput, where voting was started in an otherwise peaceful manner, residents of two villages in Laxmipur block namely N Kaipadar and Tala Kaipadar boycotted the election over certain reasons.

Notably, voting is being held in Odisha in Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Berhampur and Koraput Lok Sabha constituencies in the first phase today while Nuapada, Khariar, Umerkote, Jharigam, Nabarangpur, Dabugam, Lanjigarh, Junagarh, Dharamgarh, Bhawanipatna, Narla, Chhatrapur, Gopalpur, Berhampur, Digapahandi, Chikiti, Mohana, Paralakhemundi, Gunupur, Bissam Cuttack, Rayagada, Laxmipur, Kotpad, Jeypore, Koraput, Pottangi, Malkangiri and Chitrakonda Assembly constituencies have also gone into polls on the same day.

As many as 60,03,707 voters, out of which 29,72,925 are male, 30,30,222 female and 560 third gender will vote at 7,233 booths in Odisha today.