Panchayat polls: Filing of nomination papers concludes

Bhubaneswar: The filing of nomination papers for the three-tier panchayat elections in Odisha concluded on Tuesday.

State Election Commission (SEC) sources said a total of 2,20,789 nominations have been filed for the ensuing panchayat polls.

While 33,348 candidates have filed nomination papers for Sarpanch posts, 27475 candidates have filed nominations for panchayat samiti posts and 3880 for zila parishads.

The five-phase panchayat elections will begin from February 13 and continue till February 21.

The scrutiny of nomination papers will begin from Wednesday and the initial list of candidates will be published on January 19. The last date to withdraw nominations is January 21, After the withdrawal of nomination papers, the final list of candidates will be published on the same day.

With regular threats from Maoists in Malkangiri, no nominations have been filed in nine panchayats in cut-off areas in the newly formed Chitrakonda block.

The SEC said that they would announce another date after January 21 for filing nominations.

With the end of the nomination process, the three major political parties BJD, Congress, and BJP have started persuading the dissidents, who have filed their papers against the party candidates.

The maximum number of dissidents from BJD have filed their nomination papers against party candidates in the panchayat polls.

BJD sources said they would be successful in convincing the party leaders not to contest the elections and support the party candidates.