BJP Urges ECI To Revise Schedule For Patkura Assembly Polls

New Delhi: A delegation of senior BJP leaders on Wednesday met the Election Commission of India (ECI) at his office here and requested him to reschedule the election to the Patkura Assembly seat.

The BJP team, including senior leaders Baijayant Panda, Piyush Goyal and Sambit Patra, met the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora and submitted a memorandum.

Talking to mediapersons after meeting the CEC, Patra said that the delegation urged ECI to hold Patkura poll earlier as it will be rainy season in the state in 60 days.

“We requested the ECI to conduct election to Patkura Assembly by May 23. We also apprised him of the conspiracy by the BJD president to stop the election as well as about the newly-appointed collector of Kendrapara district Premchand Choudhary, who used to work for the Chief Minister during his tenure as the collector of Ganjam district,” Patra added.

Notably, the ECI on May 6 had postponed elections to Patkura Assembly constituency by 60 days in view of the devastation caused by Cyclone Fani. Polls were countermanded in the assembly segment during the four-phase simultaneous elections in Odisha, following the death of BJD candidate and the sitting MLA Bed Prakash Agarwalla on April 20.

The poll monitor had subsequently scheduled the elections on May 19 and the BJD nominated Sabitri Agarwalla, the widow of Bed Prakash, for the seat.

Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik had met the ECI on April 30 and requested him to defer polls in Patkura, in view of the cyclonic storm making a landfall in Puri and the damage it can cause in the coastal district of Kendrapara.