Bhubaneswar, June 3: The Election Commission has made elaborate preparations for counting of votes for all the 21 the Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly constituencies in Odisha tomorrow.

Counting will be held in 70 centres across the state starting at 8 am on Tuesday, officials said.

Over 2.5 crore voters exercised their franchise in the four-phase elections, with a turnout of 74.44 per cent, higher than the 73.09 per cent recorded in 2019, Odisha chief electoral officer Nikunja Bihari Dhal told a press conference here on Monday.
Of the total electors, 75.55 per cent women and 73.37 per cent men voted in this election.

More than 67,000 ballot units, along with 1.47 lakh postal ballots for Lok Sabha elections and 1.46 lakh for assembly elections, will be tallied across the 70 centres.

A robust three-tier security apparatus envelops all the strongrooms housing the EVMs and VVPAT devices.

Counting halls have been air-conditioned due to the heatwave, with power generators on standby, CCTVs installed, and fire fighting teams stationed.

Adequate provisions for drinking water and ORS have also been made.

Each EVM counting table will have one counting supervisor, one counting assistant, and one micro observer, he added.

A total of 5,777 counting supervisors, 5,233 counting assistants, and 5,396 micro observers have been appointed. Additionally, the Election Commission has assigned 124 special observers to oversee the counting process.

As the state is going for counting of votes simultaneously for both Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, it will be interesting to see if BJD supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is going to make history in Indian politics by winning his Hinjili Assembly constituency for six consecutive times and becoming the Chief Minister of a state for sixth consecutive terms or he is going to the books of history as the longest serving Chief Minister of Odisha.

The fate of senior BJP leader and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, senior party leaders Jual Oram, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Baijayant Panda, Sambit Patra and Aparajita Sarangi and former Union Minister Srikant Kumar Jena of Congress, BJD organisation general secretary Pranab Prakash Dash will be decided in the counting for Lok Sabha polls tomorrow,

Similarly, the fate of senior BJP leaders Manmohan Samal, Suresh Pujari, Jayanarayan Mishra, BJD leaders Ramesh Majhi, Arun Sahoo, Prasanna Acharya, senior Congress leaders Niranjan Patnaik, Jaydeb Jena and Sarat Patnaik will be decided in the Assembly polls counting.

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