Polling for the Councillors and Chairpersons of Hindol and Attabira NACs will be held on April 3, informed the Odisha Election Commissioner, Aditya Padhi.
As per reports, the delimitation and reservation process were already finalised in December 2022. The electoral roll revision began in January 2023 on the basis of the voter list published by the Election Commission of India.
Final electoral rolls have already been published by the State Election Commission.
These two NACs have 28 wards and 32 polling booths. As many as 23,397 voters will exercise their franchise in both the NACs.
In a first, the Commission has directed to provide copies of primary voter list to all the political parties. Two EVMs will be used in each booths as the Chairpersons are going to be elected directly by the people along with the Councillors.
The EVMs will be pasted with different colour papers - pink EVM for councillors and yellow EVMs for chairperson.
None Of The Above (NOTA) option will be provided in the EVMs too.
Informing about the maximum expenditure allowed, State Election Commissioner, Aditya Padhi said, “The spending cap for Councillor nominee in campaigning has been set at Rs 50,000, while the nominee of Chairperson can spend a maximum of Rs 2 lakh on their campaigns. Councillor aspirant can use two vehicles and the chairperson aspirant can use four vehicles in their campaigns.”
“The candidates will have to furnish affidavits declaring their educational qualification, criminal antecedents and assets & liabilities. They will also have to furnish affidavits adhering to one-spouse-alive and two-children norms. Incomplete affidavits will be rejected and false affidavits will be treated as criminal offence,” Padhi clarified.
Election Schedule:
Issue of notice by election officer- March 3
Nomination filing - March 9-15 (Including govt holidays)
Scrutiny of nominations- March 17
Withdrawal of candidature – Till March 20
Polling date – April 3
Counting & declaration of result – April 5
Vice-chairperson election (Indirect) – April 19
(Reported By Niranjan Reddy, OTV)