Over 3.34 Cr Voters In Odisha To Exercise Their Franchise In 2024 General Elections

By Yajati Keshari Rout Last updated Mar 16, 2024

Bhubaneswar: More than 3.34 crore voters will exercise their franchise in the upcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Odisha, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Nikunja Bihari Dhal at a presser here on Saturday.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Odisha, altogether 1.69 crore male voters and 1.65 crore female voters will cast their votes in the ensuing polls in Odisha. The state has altogether 3,438 third-gender voters, over 5 lakh differently-abled voters and more than 3 lakh senior citizen voters (Above 85 years).

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday announced the schedule for Simultaneous General Elections for 21 Parliamentary Constituencies and 147 Assembly Constituencies in Odisha will be held in four phases between May 13 and June 1.

Here is the total number of Parliamentary/Assembly Constituencies in the State and the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribe candidates are as under:

State	Total	Reserved for SCs	Reserved for STs
No. of PCs	21	03	05
No. of ACs	147	24	33

A total of 30 District Election Officers including 21 Returning Officers (PC), 131 Returning Officers (AC) and 294 Asst. Returning Officers (AC) have been appointed and trained to conduct elections smoothly. Besides, around 2.70 lakh polling personnel (including 20% reserve) are being trained to be deployed in the Polling Stations throughout the State. Each PS shall be manned by a Presiding Officer & five Polling Officers

As per the announcement of ECI, elections will be conducted in Odisha in four phases.

Simultaneous General Elections 2024 Schedule:

Poll Events	Schedule (4^th Phase)	Schedule (5^th Phase)	Schedule (6^th Phase)	Schedule (7^th Phase)
Date of Issue of Gazette Notification	18 Apr 2024 (Thursday)	26 Apr 2024 (Friday)	29 Apr 2024 (Monday)	07 May 2024 (Tuesday)
Last Date of Nominations	25 Apr 2024 (Thursday)	03 May 2024 (Friday)	06 May 2024 (Monday)	14 May 2024 (Tuesday)
Date of Scrutiny of Nominations	26 Apr 2024 (Friday)	04 May 2024 (Saturday)	07 May 2024 (Tuesday)	15 May 2024 (Wednesday)
Last Date for Withdrawal of candidatures	29 Apr 2024 (Monday)	06 May 2024 (Monday)	09 May 2024 (Thursday)	17 May 2024 (Friday)
Date of Poll	13 May 2024 (Monday)	20 May 2024 (Monday)	25 May 2024 (Saturday)	01 June 2024 (Saturday)
Date of Counting	04 June 2024 (Tuesday)
Date before which election shall be completed	06 June 2024 (Thursday)

The phase-wise polling schedule is as under:-

Schedule	No & Name of PC
4^th Phase	11-Kalahandi 12-Nabarangpur (ST) 20-Berhampur 21-Koraput (ST)
5^th Phase	1 – Bargarh 2 – Sundargarh (ST) 10-Bolangir 13-Kandhamal 19-Aska
6^th Phase	3-Sambalpur 4-Keonjhar (ST) 9-Dhenkanal 14-Cuttack 17-Puri 18-Bhubaneswar
7^th Phase	5- Mayurbhanj (ST) 6-Balasore 7-Bhadrak (SC) 8-Jajpur (SC) 15-Kendrapara 16-Jagatsinghpur (SC)

As per instruction of ECI, electors shall have to produce the EPIC or any one of the below-mentioned 12 (twelve) photo identity documents for establishing their identity at the polling station before casting their vote.

Aadhaar Card,
MNREGA Job Card,
Passbooks with photograph issued by Bank/Post Office,
Health Insurance Smart Card issued under the scheme of the Ministry of Labour,
Driving License,
PAN Card,
Smart Card issued by RGI under NPR,
Indian Passport,
Pension document with photograph,
Service Identity Cards with photograph issued to employees by Central/State Govt./PSUs/Public Limited Companies,
Official identity cards issued to MPs / MLAs / MLCs and
Unique Disability ID (UDID) Card, issued by M/o Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India.

Electoral Profile – 2024

The Final Electoral Roll after Special Summary Revision w.r.t. 01/01/2024 as the qualifying date was published on 5^th January 2024. The Electoral Roll is under the process of continuous updation.

The Electoral Profile of the State is as under:

CATEGORY	As on 15.03.2024
Total Electors	3,34,73,561
Male	1,69,55,369
Female	1,65,14,754
Transgender	3,438
Gender Ratio	974
PWD	5,19,861
18-19 yrs	7,99,334
Senior Citizens (85 +)	3,02,273
Service Voters	49,599
Overseas electors	184
EPIC Coverage	100 %

Polling stations:

There are 37809 Polling Stations (4380 Urban & 33,429 Rural) spread over 30653 Polling Station locations in the state. Auxiliary Polling stations shall also be set up where number of electors is exceeding 1500.
District Election Officers have been instructed to ensure the availability of Assured Minimum Facilities (AMFs) such as Ramps, drinking water, Electricity connection, and separate toilet facilities for males and females in all these Polling Stations for the convenience and facilitation of voters.
As per the instruction of ECI, the Voters’ Assistance Booth will be set up in all Polling Stations.
Volunteers available in the district from NSS, Bharat Scouts and Guides, Student police cadets, etc. will be deployed in Polling Stations to assist the Senior Citizens /PWD / infirm voters.
About 60% of the total number of Polling Stations shall be covered by Webcasting on the day of the poll. Besides, other non-CAPF measures like deployment of Micro-observers, arrangements for Videography and CCTV shall be undertaken to keep a watch on the polling process.
About 20 per cent of the total polling stations will be Model Polling Stations, which will include all-youth-managed polling stations, PWD-managed Polling stations, and around 10 per cent Sakhi (all women-managed) polling stations. Special arrangements shall be made for the female polling personnel.
Facilitation for Persons with Disabilities (PwD) & Senior Citizens: Persons with Disabilities (PwD) & Senior Citizens above 85 years of age will be given priority for entering polling booths. Besides, they will be given free transport facilities as well as wheelchair (in the Polling Station) as per their application in Saksham App.

Postal Ballot:

As per the direction of ECI, the absentee voters of the following categories are eligible for postal ballot.
1. Senior citizens (above 85 years of age).
2. Persons with disability.
3. COVID-19-suspected or affected Persons.
The above categories of citizens wishing to vote by postal ballot must make an application to the Returning Officer (RO) of the constituency concerned, in Form-12D, giving all requisite particulars. Such application seeking postal ballot facility should reach the RO within five days following the date of notification of the election concerned. BLOs shall assist the voters in this regard.
The Service Voters will be sent ETPBMS (Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot Management System) through the respective Returning Officers on which they will record their vote and send it back through post.
Voters on election duty will also be eligible to vote through the postal ballot in the facilitation centres set up by the Returning Officers. For this, they will have to apply in the prescribed Form-12 within the stipulated time.

Nomination Procedure

ECI has issued elaborate guidelines for the filing of nomination papers. At the time of filing nominations, candidates have to file affidavits relating to assets and liabilities of self and family members, Government dues pending, criminal antecedents, etc. including details of personal social media Accounts. The details would be disclosed/publicized as per ECI directions.
If the candidate has any criminal antecedent – either pending cases or cases in which the candidate has been convicted, then he shall have to publicize such details of his/her criminal case in newspaper and television channels thrice during the campaign period in the prescribed format.
Recognized political parties and registered un-recognized political parties, which set up candidates with criminal cases, either pending cases or cases of past conviction, are required to publish declarations giving details in this regard on their website as well as in TV channels and newspapers having wide circulation in Odisha. Publishing of such declaration in newspapers and TV channels is required to be done at least on three different dates.

Model Code of Conduct

With the announcement of the Simultaneous General Elections, the Model Code of Conduct has come into force with immediate effect in the entire State. All the provisions of the Model Code of Conduct will apply to all candidates, political parties and, the State Government & the Union Government.

Elaborate arrangements have been made for ensuring the effective implementation of the MCC Guidelines. Any violation of these Guidelines would be strictly dealt with. Citizens can report instances of MCC violation using the C-VIGIL App.

Arrangements for Election Expenditure Monitoring

Comprehensive instructions for effective monitoring of the election expenditure of the candidates have been issued to the District Election Officers.
All concerned Central/State Enforcement Agencies have been asked to keep a close watch to ensure inducement(cash/liquor/freebies) free elections.
The maximum limit of election expenditure to be incurred by the candidate for Assembly constituencies is Rs. 40.00 lakh and for Parliamentary constituencies is Rs. 95.00 Lakh.

EVMs &VVPATS: –

- Sufficient number of EVM & VVPAT machines of M3 Model manufactured by Electronics Corporation of India Ltd are available in the state.
- After the First Level Checking (FLC) those are kept in district EVM warehouses.
- EVM Awareness drive in physical mode had been conducted in the entire state during January-February,2024 through Mobile Demonstration Van (MDV) and EVM Demonstration Centers (EDC) in which the Public participated and gained experience on EVM voting. More than 15 lakh persons had participated in the mock Poll.

After the finalization of the list of contesting candidates, the Commissioning of EVMs will take place wherein, ballot papers will be installed on the Ballot Units
The representatives of all recognized political parties will participate in the 1^st Randomization of EVMs and Candidates, or their representatives will be present during the Commissioning of the EVMs.

Citizen/Candidate Centric IT applications being used in election management

c-VIGIL App

c-VIGIL provides time-stamped evidentiary proof of the Model Code of Conduct/Expenditure Violation by empowering every citizen to click a photo or video using his or her smartphone. This app prioritizes the speedy and effective actions by authorities and promises users status reports within 100 minutes. The Application is available on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Suvidha Portal:

In this single window system, candidates and political parties can apply for filing nomination, permissions for meetings, rallies, vehicles, temporary election office, loudspeakers, etc. This system is put in place at every RO level which will provide for applying, processing, granting, and monitoring permissions in a synergistic manner. The Online Nomination filling facility is an optional facility to facilitate ease of filing and correct filing. The regular offline submission as prescribed under the law shall continue too.

Candidate Affidavit Portal:

The Complete list of Contesting Candidates with their profile, nomination status, and affidavits will be available for public view through the Candidate Affidavit Portal: https://affidavit.eci.gov.in/.

Know Your Candidates (KYC):

This App is available for both Android and iOS platforms for informing about the “Criminal Antecedents” status of candidates. This allows citizens to browse candidates with/ without Criminal Antecedents and empowers the citizens to know the criminal antecedents of the candidates.

Voter Services portal:

Through the Voter Services Portal (https://voters.eci.gov.in), a user can avail and access various services such as accessing the electoral list, applying for a new voter ID card, applying online for corrections in voter’s card, downloading the e-EPIC, viewing details of Polling booth, Assembly Constituency and Parliamentary constituency, and get the contact details of Booth Level officer, Electoral Registration Officer among other services.

Voter Helpline App(VHA):

Citizens can avail and access various services such as applying for a voter ID card, applying online for corrections in voter’s card, viewing details of Polling booths, Assembly Constituency and Parliamentary constituency, and get the contact details of Booth Level officer, Electoral Registration Officer among other services. The application is available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Saksham App:

With the help of this app, the PwD elector can make requests for marking them as PWD, request for new registration, request for migration, request for correction in EPIC details, and request for a wheelchair at the polling booth. It utilizes the Accessibility features of mobile phones for voters with blindness and hearing disabilities.

Further, the Chief Electoral Officer has sought the active cooperation of all the stakeholders in the electoral process to ensure smooth, free, fair, peaceful, participative & festive elections.

“All Government officers and all contractual Para Workers who are substantially paid from the public exchequer (AWW, CRP, MBK, etc) have to maintain absolute impartiality and ensure level playing field for all political parties and candidates. They must not work in any manner, directly or indirectly to further the interest of any Candidate/Political Party. Stringent action shall be taken against them for acting in partisan manner,” Chief Electoral Officer, N.B. Dhal advised.