Notification issued for second phase polling in Odisha

Bhubaneswar:  The office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Odisha today issued notification for five Lok Sabha constituencies and 35 assembly constituencies, where polls are scheduled to be held on April 18.

The five Lok Sabha constituencies going to poll in second phase are Bargarh, Bolangir, Sundargarh, Kandhamal and Aska. Polls will also be held on the same day in all the 35 assembly constituencies falling under these LS seats.

As per the notification, the filing of nominations for the constituencies going to polls in second phase started from 11 am on Tuesday and will end at 3 pm on March 26. The last date of withdrawal of nominations by candidates is March 29.

Informing about the poll preparedness, CEO Surendra Kumar said, “The first level randomisation of EVMs have been completed in 26 districts and the process in other four districts is expected to be completed in next two days. The bar code scanning of EVMs will be done in next two days.

Kumar further added that EVMs will be transported to the strong rooms on the day of final publication of candidates list.

What is EVM randomisation? Basically, Election Commission has established this process to ensure free and fair poll. This is a process where after listing serial numbers of all EVMs, a computerised selection of EVMs are done in such a way that none could know which EVM will be allotted to which constituency or polling station. This is the first stage of randomisation. The second level of randomisation will be done by Returning Officers (ROs) while allotting EVMs to polling stations.

CEO Kumar informed that training of ROs will start from March 23 and will be completed by March 28. The poll process in Odisha starts from April 11.