Bhubaneswar: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday issued notifications for the bye-election to Nuapada Assembly constituency in Odisha.
According to the notification, the bye-election will see nomination filing from October 20, scrutiny on October 22, and withdrawal of nominations by October 24. The polling will be held on November 11 with counting of votes on November 14.
A total of 47 booths in this constituency have been identified in LWE-affected, where polling to be held from 7 am to 4 pm. In the rest booths, votes can be cast till 5 pm.
A table titled Polling Stations Table lists for 47 Polling Stations LWE Affected polling from 07:00 AM to 04:00 PM with station numbers 145 to 150 152 to 154 156 to 172 173 191 to 193 195 to 198 201 to 205 207 to 219 221 to 258 and for remaining Polling Stations from 07:00 AM to 05:00 PM signed by Subject Kumar Mishra Secretary.
The notification added that the entire election process will be completed by November 16.
Earlier, Odisha’s Chief Electoral Officer R S Gopalan announced that a total of 358 polling stations, including 56 new ones, will be set up in the Nuapada constituency for the upcoming by-election. A total of 2,53,624 people, including 1,24,108 men, 1,29,495 women and 21 people of the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise.
The seat fell vacant following the death of BJD MLA Rajendra Dholakia, who passed away on September 8 while undergoing treatment in Chennai at the age of 69.
In the 2024 assembly election, Dholakia retained the seat with 61,822 votes, while Congress rebel Ghasiram Majhi, who contested as an Independent, polled 50,941 votes, emerging as a close runner-up. The Congress’s official nominee, Sarat Pattanayak, lagged far behind with 15,501 votes, while the BJP candidate Abhinandan Panda finished third, managing just over 440,814 votes.
While Ghasiram has since returned to Congress and named the party candidate for the bypoll, BJD’s prospective candidate Jay Dholakia joined the ruling BJP in a major setback for the Naveen Patnaik-led party.