States » East » CAEPosted at: May 23 2019 8:12AM Counting of votes for 21 LS and 146 Assembly seats begins in Odisha amid tight securityBhubaneswar, May 23 (UNI) Amid tight security the counting of votes polled simultaneously for 21 Lok sabha and 146 Assembly seats in Odisha began this morning at 0800 hours.A total 63 counting centres have been set up across the state for the purpose with a three tier security cover manned by the special operation group jawans, para military forces and the Odisha armed police forces.Elections to the 21 Lok Sabha and 146 Assembly seats in Odisha held in four phases.The election to the Patkura Assembly seat which was postponed due to the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agarwal to May 19, further postponed for two months after cyclone Fani devastated the coastal Odisha.There were 174 candidates in the fray for the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 1127 candidates for the 146 Assembly seats. Both the Lok Sabh and Assembly seats witnessed a multi cornered contest but the real battle for the ballots was mostly confined to the ruling BJD, the BJP and the Congress.About 72.09 per cent of the total 3,24,68,635 voters had exercised their franchise in the elections held in four phases.Out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats, three reserved for SC, five for the ST and rest 13 for the general candidates. Similarly out of the 146 assembly seats where elections were held 24 are SC constituencies, 33 for the ST and rest 89 for the general.Among the key candidates in the Lok sabha are BJP leader and Union Minister Jual Oram, senior congress leader and former union ministers Bhakta Charan Das and former union minister and BJD leader Chandra Sekhar Sahu,Odisha BJP President Basant Panda, BJP national Vice President Baijant Panda, BJP national spokesman Sambit Patra,former CRPF DG Prakash Mishra,former Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik, senior Congress leader Pradeep Majhi, BJD Rajya Sabha MP Prasanna Acharaya and bureaucrat turned politician Aparajita Sharangi.Similarly prominent among the fray in the Assembly are Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Odisha Congress President Niranjan Patnaik, Leader of opposition and senior Congress leader Narashingha Mishra,BJP legislature party leader K V Singdeo, Speaker P K Amat,Government chief whip Amar Prasad Satpathy, Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati, BJD MP Somuya ranjan Patnaik, Finance Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera and 16 council of ministers of Naveen Patnaik government.In the last Lok Sabha election, the ruling BJD had captured 20 seats while the BJP won only one seat.In the outgoing Assembly the ruling BJD had strength of 117 members followed by Congress (16), BJP (10),CPM (1),Samata Kranti Dal (1) and Independents (2).The polling was by and large peaceful barring stray incidents of naxal violence in Malkangiri and kandhmal and technical snags in the EVM and VVPAT machines. Re polling was held in two phases in nine and 34 booths.While the ruling BJD and the BJP had contested all the 21 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress was in the fray for 19 Lok sabha seats and offered one seat each to CPI and CPM.Naveen Patnaik was the only star campaigner for BJD while Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and host of union ministers had extensively campaigned for the BJP candidates and conducted roadshows.The BJP called for a change of 19 years rule of Naveen Patnaik government and BJD campaign was mostly focused on the central apathy towards the state.The congress campaign was against the anti people and anti farmer policy of both Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi governmentThe Congress campaign was a lackluster affairs as party president Rahul Gandhi addressed only one election rally while congress leaders Raj Babar and Gulam Nabi Azad visited once.UNI DP RNTags: #Counting of votes for 21 LS and 146 Assembly seats begins in Odisha amid tight security