Balasore: An elderly man died while standing in queue to cast his vote at a booth in Odisha’s Balasore district during the fourth and final phase polling on Saturday.
According to sources, the incident took place at booth No. 159 at Ishwarpur in Nilagiri when the 77-year-old man was waiting in the queue for his turn to exercise the franchise.
As the man suddenly fell down and fainted, he was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital with the help of polling staff deployed at the booth. However, doctors declared him dead at the hospital.
While the exact reason of his death is yet to be ascertained, it was suspected to have been caused by intense heat and high level of humidity.
The incident came in the wake of death of a large number of people due to suspected sunstroke in several districts in western Odisha in the last two days.
With severe heatwave sweeping different parts of the country, six security personnel on election duty reportedly died due to excessive heat in Mirzapur of Uttar Pradesh.