Bhubaneswar: Even as BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate for Puri sought more time from Election Commission due to delay in polling process on Saturday, the party’s nominee for Brahmagiri Assembly seat Upasana Mohapatra accused the presiding officer of a booth of misbehaving with the voters.
While the polling was going during the third phase of elections in the state, Mohapatra was going around different booths in her constituency to verify that everything was going smoothly. During her tour, she went to Gadarodanga polling centre.
After interacting with the voters, the BJP leader told the media that the BJD workers were creating disturbances and threatening the voters while the presiding officer of the booth was supporting them.
“The presiding officer under the influence of BJD is misbehaving with the voters coming to booth to exercise their franchise. BJD agent Biswajit Baliarsingh is forcing people not to vote for me inside the booth,” she said.
Stating that she had already informed the district collector who is the district electoral officer of the matter, Mohapatra alleged that the ruling party had deployed goons to disrupt the democratic process.
Neither BJD nor the presiding officer has expressed their reactions nor issued any statement on the allegation.
Earlier, BJP candidate for Puri Parliamentary constituency Sambit Patra urged the administration and Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend the voting time in polling booths where polling had stopped for some time due to error in the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Patra said he and many other voters had to wait for 90 minutes as the EVM machine did not function. They voted after the error was fixed.
