Odisha Panchayat Election (Odisha Panchayat ElectionsAccording to the early trends of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) 249 Zilla Parishad Area (ZPZ) is leading in seats, while BJP candidates are ahead in 32 seats and Congress candidates are ahead in 13 seats. Officials gave this information on Saturday. State Election Commission officials said the counting of votes for 315 ZPZ seats began at 8 am on Saturday at various block headquarters with strict adherence to the COVID-19 guidelines. He said that trends are available for 299 Zilla Parishad seats, in which BJD is ahead in 249 seats, BJP on 32, Congress in 13 seats.
He said that the counting of votes for the remaining 307 seats in the Zilla Parishad zone would be done on February 27 and for the 229 seats in the Zilla Parishad zone on February 29. State Election Commission secretary RN Sahu said that if any discrepancies are found between the ballot paper details prepared by the presiding officer and the actual ballot papers in the ballot box, the actual ballot papers found in the ballot box will be taken into account and counted accordingly. And the results will be declared.
The counting of votes will be done for three days from Saturday. Polling for these seats was held in five different phases on February 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24. Nearly 70 percent polling was recorded in Odisha in the last phase of panchayat elections on Thursday and 41.81 lakh voters exercised their franchise. State Election Commissioner A.P. Padhi had expressed the possibility of an increase in the voting percentage after the final list was made available on Friday, but it did not change much. The overall voter turnout this time was 78.6 per cent, which was slightly better than 78.03 per cent in 2017.
According to the commission, the vote percentage in the four phases of the election was more than 70 per cent. Voter turnout was 79 percent in the fourth phase, 78.6 percent in the third phase, 78.3 percent in the second phase and 77.2 percent in the first phase. Meanwhile, the commission conducted re-polling in at least 45 polling stations where polling was disrupted during the first and second phases of elections on February 16 and 18.
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