Voters wait in a queue at a polling station in Berhampur on Thursday. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: People in large numbers came out in all the 20 districts to cast their votes in the urban polls today.

Around 68 per cent polling was reported till the evening. It will go up slightly, said an official of the State Election Commission.

Counting will be held tomorrow morning except at the Vyasa Nagar Municipality in Jajpur district where re-polling will be held at two booths as the electronic voting machines did not function properly.

State election commissioner Ajit Tripathy said: “The election was overall peaceful. No untoward incidents have been reported from any part of the state.”

The urban polls were held to 66 civic bodies, including 40 notified area councils, 25 municipalities and one corporation.

This time, the voting percentage was quite high compared to the last urban polls in 2008.

“In the last urban polls, average polling in the state was 54 per cent. It was mainly on account of the low-polling percentage in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, where only 38 per cent voters cast their ballots,” said an official.

Around 60 per cent voting was reported at the urban local bodies in the Maoist-hit areas. In the Ummerkote urban local body in Nabarangpur district, around 70 per cent voting was reported. The highest polling was recorded at the Banki civic body in Cuttack district, where 81 per cent voters turned up to exercise their franchise.

However, all eyes had been on the Berhampur Municipal Corporation, where the elections were held smoothly. All political heavyweights cast their votes in the city.

Revenue minister Surya Narayan Patro, local MLA Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik and former Union minister and Congress leader Chandra Sekhar Sahu cast their votes at their respective wards during the first hour of polling. Around 60 per cent polling was reported in this corporation.

Incidentally, Sahu cast his vote in a ward, which did not have a Congress candidate. Sahu said: “We have a Congress-backed candidate contesting from the ward.”

With elections over, all the parties have started claiming that they would bag the maximum number of civic bodies.

Vice-president of the BJD and panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das said: “The party will sweep the polls. We are going to win elections nearly in 50 urban bodies.”

Pradesh Congress Committee president Jaydev Jena said his party would do well in the elections. “The percentage of voting will also go up for the Congress candidates in the polls this time,” he said.

BJP state unit president K.V. Singh Deo said: “Wait till tomorrow, you will see the difference. We will certainly capture 25 per cent of the urban bodies.”

In 2008 when elections for 91 civic bodies were held, the BJD (which had a coalition with the BJP then) had won in 46 civic bodies. The BJP had bagged 20, while the Congress won in 15.