Bhubaneswar: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday issued notifications for the bye-election to Nuapada Assembly constituency in Odisha.
According to the notification, the bye-election will see nomination filing from October 20, scrutiny on October 22, and withdrawal of nominations by October 24. The polling will be held on November 11 with counting of votes on November 14.
A total of 47 booths in this constituency have been identified in LWE-affected, where polling to be held from 7 am to 4 pm. In the rest booths, votes can be cast till 5 pm.
The notification added that the entire election process will be completed by November 16.
Earlier, Odisha’s Chief Electoral Officer R S Gopalan announced that a total of 358 polling stations, including 56 new ones, will be set up in the Nuapada constituency for the upcoming by-election. A total of 2,53,624 people, including 1,24,108 men, 1,29,495 women and 21 people of the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise.
The seat fell vacant following the death of BJD MLA Rajendra Dholakia, who passed away on September 8 while undergoing treatment in Chennai at the age of 69.
In the 2024 assembly election, Dholakia retained the seat with 61,822 votes, while Congress rebel Ghasiram Majhi, who contested as an Independent, polled 50,941 votes, emerging as a close runner-up. The Congress’s official nominee, Sarat Pattanayak, lagged far behind with 15,501 votes, while the BJP candidate Abhinandan Panda finished third, managing just over 440,814 votes.
While Ghasiram has since returned to Congress and named the party candidate for the bypoll, BJD’s prospective candidate Jay Dholakia joined the ruling BJP in a major setback for the Naveen Patnaik-led party.
BJP Core Committee Discusses Strategy for Nuapada By-Poll at Party Headquarters
On Sunday, a meeting of the BJP Core Committee was convened at the party headquarters to deliberate on the strategy for the bypoll. “It was a crucial meeting, and we discussed various strategies. We are confident that BJP will win the seat. Everybody will support the BJP candidate,” said senior leader Basanta Panda, without giving any hint if Jay will be the party’s nominee for Nuapada.
He added that the parliamentary board will decide and announce the candidate very soon.
“The BJP has many worthy candidates across all constituencies, and it is our collective responsibility to strengthen the organization by creating more dedicated karyakartas in every Assembly segment,” Revenue Minister Suresh Pujari said.
Since 2000, the seat had been represented thrice by the late Dholakia as a BJD legislator and once as an Independent, while former state BJP president Basanta Panda secured two victories.