Lacklustre campaign in Orissa

Lacklustre and devoid of all frills, campaigning in 11 out of 21 LS & 77 out of 147 assembly seats came to a tame end on Sunday.

Lacklustre and devoid of all frills, campaigning in 11 out of 21 lok sabha and 77 out of 147 assembly constituencies scheduled to go to polls on April 20 next in the first phase, came to a tame end this afternoon.

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An electorate of 1.29 crore would exercise their franchise on Tuesday which would decide the fate of a number of political stalwarts including union minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram (BJP), former Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang (Cong) and former Union Minister K P Singh Deo (Cong).

There are 54 candidates in the fray for the lok sabha polls while 417 aspirants trying to enter the assembly this time.

The Lok Sabha constituencies going to polls in the first phase are Berhampur, Koraput(st), Nabarangpur(st), Phulbani(sc), Kalahandi, Balangir, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Sundargarh(st) and Keonjhar(st).

The second phase polls for the rest ten lok sabha and 70 assembly seats would be held on April 26 next.

Official sources said that all arrangements for holding the phase-i polls had been completed and polling parties had left for their respective destinations comprising 13,741 of the total number of 26,250 booths.

Electronic voting machines (EVM) would be used in all polling booths for the first time in this simultaneous elections.