Bhubaneswar: The police had to move a BJD candidate out of a booth following an altercation between him and polling personnel in Rourkela of Odisha’s Sundargarh district on Monday.
According to sources, BJD candidate Sarada Nayak had gone to a polling booth at Gopabandhupalli Primary School in Rourkela while the voting was going on in the second phase of elections to Lok Sabha and Assembly in Odisha.
While he was talking to polling personnel inside the booth, some of the voters and BJP opposed Nayak’s entry into the polling booth and raised slogans against him. It led to an altercation between Nayak’s supporters and the locals.
Before the situation could further escalate, the police deployed there took Nayak out of booth. Additional police force was also deployed to prevent untoward incident during the polling.
Nayak claimed that some people having affiliation to a rival party tried to create disturbance when he visited the polling booth. “Some people tried to oppose me and create disturbance at the booth. I left the place to avoid any untoward incident and informed the SP,” he said.
Later, speaking to media persons on the incident, chief electoral officer (CEO) Nikunja Bihari Dhal said he had aware about it and talked to Sundargarh district collector on the matter.
“The incident took place when the BJD candidate was visiting the booths. As a candidate, he has every right to go to the booths to check whether polling was going on smoothly or not. In a booth at Gopabandhupalli, there was an altercation between him and one of the polling personnel there. In order to prevent further altercation, the police took him out of booth. Nayak has not been taken into police custody,” he said.
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