Bhubaneswar: Voting for the third phase of the Odisha elections is underway for six Lok Sabha and 42 Assembly seats across the state on Saturday.
According to sources, polling began at 7 am in Sambalpur, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri Lok Sabha seats along with 42 assembly segments and will continue till 6 pm.
However, voters have expressed disappointment over the delay of voting due to Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) malfunction.
The electoral process faced an unexpected hiccup as voting was delayed due to a malfunction in EVM in Dhenkanal, Cuttack and Keonjhar.
The glitch occurred at Cuttack Sadar Kalapada booth no 81, Dhenkanal Simalia booth no 157, Andapur Hatadiha booth no 139, Deogarh booth no 18 and two booths under Brahmagiri constituency.
Similarly, the voting process faced an unexpected delay at Angul booth no 35, Keonjhar Badapadana booth no 274 and Krushnaprasad Maludar booth number 13.
Instead of commencing at the scheduled time of 7 am, voting could only begin approximately 50 minutes late owing to the technical issue with the EVM. This delay caused inconvenience to voters who had arrived early to cast their ballots, sources said.
In the third round of the simultaneous elections in the state, over than 94.48 lakh voters including voters including 48,26, 375 male voters and 46,14,134 females are eligible to exercise their franchise in 10,581 polling booths across the 42 seats.
The fates of 64 MP and 383 MLA candidates will be sealed in EVM machines on May 25.
Key candidates who are in the fray in the third phase of Odisha polls include Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, BJD’s Organisational Secretary Pranab Prakash Dash, Basanti Hembram, Ashok Panda and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra.
It is learnt that as many as 121 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) teams have been deployed to ensure violence-free elections.
