Security personnel on poll duty in Rourkela. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, March 30: Around 1.1 lakh personnel will be deployed for the first phase election to be held on April 10, said an officials in the chief electoral officer’s office.

Election will be held for 10 Lok Sabha and 70 Assembly constituencies situated mostly in west and south Odisha. More than 1.35 crore electors will decide the fate of the candidates.

The polling personnel include 20 financial observers, 30 general observers and five awareness observers. Besides, there would be micro observers at the booths. District election officers, returning officers and presiding officers along with a large number of security officers providing security to candidates would also be present.

“The personnel have already been sent to the respective areas,” said an officer.

Of the 98 candidates contesting for the 10 Lok Sabha seats, three national parties — Congress, BJP and Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) — have fielded 10 candidates each along with the BJD. Besides, Trinamul Congress has fielded three candidates, the CPI and the CPM one each. There are also 21 Independents and 32 candidates from smaller state parties.

Of the 10 Lok Sabha seats, Balangir is the largest with 15.55 lakh voters and Kandhamal the smallest with 11.36 lakh. “While Kalahandi has the maximum of 15 candidates, Nabarangpur has the minimum of seven,” said nodal officer for election Naba Nayak.

Of the 668 candidates contesting for the 70 Assembly seats, 48 are women. Major political parties such as the BJD, the BJP and the Congress have fielded one candidate each in all the 70 constituencies. The BSP has fielded 58 while the CPI, 11, the CPM, eight, and Nationalist Congress Party, four. There are 127 Independents in the fray. Besides, 250 candidates of smaller parties are also trying their luck.

Narla Assembly constituency in Kalahandi district has the highest number of contenders — 20 while, Bonai, Jharigaon and Bhanjanagar have the lowest of five candidates each. Of the 70 constituencies, 11 are reserved for Scheduled Caste, 23 for Scheduled Tribes and 36 for general candidates. Patnagarh is the largest constituency in terms of number of voters while Baliguda is the smallest one.

As many as 98 candidates are running for 11 Lok Sabha constituencies and 747 are in the fray for 77 Assembly segments in the coastal belt, which will go to polls on April 17.

Of 105 candidates who had filed their nomination papers for the 11 Lok Sabha constituencies, four papers were rejected during scrutiny and three candidates withdrew their candidatures, leaving 98 in the fray.

Likewise, there were 747 nominated candidates contesting from 77 Assembly constituencies. Of the 832 nomination papers filed, 48 were rejected during scrutiny and 37 candidates withdrew their candidature.

Joint chief electoral officer Jyoti Prakash Dash said highest number of candidates (24) is in the fray in the Morada Assembly segment in tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district, followed by Ekamra Bhubaneswar (20) and Rairangpur (17). Since there are more than 16 candidates in these constituencies, an extra electronic voting machine will be required.

On the other hand, Anandpur, Athgarh and Rajnagar have the lowest with five candidates each.