Know Guidelines For Bypolls In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The bypolls for Balasore Sadar and Tirtol constituencies are scheduled to be held on November 3. Here are the poll guidelines announced by hte Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sushil Kumar Lohani on Friday:

—Only two persons will be allowed to accompany the candidate during the filing of nomination papers.
— For filing the nomination papers, the candidate will be allowed to come to the office using a maximum of two vehicles.
—Persons above 80 years, physically challenged and COVID-19 suspects are eligible to exercise their franchise through postal ballot for which they have to fill up the Form-12 by October 14
—Polling officials will collect the postal ballots from these persons from October 21 to November 1.
—A maximum of 5 persons will be allowed for door-to-door campaigning.
—A venue will be earmarked for public meetings where the number of people should be less than 100.
—In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of booths has been increased by 40-50%.
—Thermal screening of all the voters and the use of masks during the polling will be mandatory.
—Polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm.
—Voters coming to the booths without a mask will be provided a mask by the polling officials.
—The voters will press the EVM button by wearing gloves.
—Voters having COVID-19 symptoms and high temperature will be given a token. They will cast their vote in the last one hour of the polling.