Himachal: 104 roads blocked due to rain and snowfall, yellow alert issued

After reaching Puri this morning, the Prime Minister first visited the Shreemandir and paid obeisance to Lord Jagannath and His siblings Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra. After spending about 30 minutes in the Shreemandir, the Prime Minister held a roadshow from Marichikote to Medical Chhak on the grand road. The 1.5-km stretch wore saffron with BJP flags and caps seen all around. 

The Prime Minister moved in a flower-decked special open-roof vehicle through the Grand Road. He was greeted with the beating of drums, ghants and other traditional musical instruments and folk dances, including Ghoda Nacha (House Dance). 

Shouting of slogans "Modi, Modi', 'Bande Bharat Mata' and 'BJP Jindabad'  was added as a musical tone to the slow-moving roadshow. The popularity of the Prime Minister was reflected in the presence of a mass gathering along the two sides of the barricaded Grand Road. 

Puri Lok Sabha MP candidate Sambit Patra and BJP State president moved along with the Prime Minister, waiving cutouts of lotus, the symbol of the BJP. 

Seven BJP MLA candidates- Jayant Sarangi (Puri), Om Prakash Mishra (Satyabadi), Prithviraj Harichandan (Chilika), Upasana Mohapatra (Brahmagiri), Ashrit Patnaik (Pipili), Pratusha Rajeswari Singh (Nayagarh) and Surama Padhi (Ranapur)- in the poll fray under the Puri Lok Sabha constituency greeted the Prime Minister from seven platforms erected at different places along the Grand Road. 

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As many as 79, 69, 887 voters are enrolled to exercise their franchise in this phase of elections in the State. 

The five parliamentary constituencies going to polls today are Bargarh, Sundargarh, Bolangir, Kandhamal and Aska. All 35 Assembly constituencies coming under these five Lok Sabha segments are also going to polls. 

The electorate comprised 39,45,000 female voters, 40,33, 992 male and 851 transgender voters, according to the Chief Electoral Officer Nikunja Bihari Dhal. .

Of the 9,162 polling stations, 1,041 booths are being managed by women pooling officers and 25 booths by PwD employees. A total of 1,541 booths have been named as model polling stations. 

About 1800 booths have been identified as sensitive. A total of 102 companies of central forces have been deployed at these sensitive booths. 

The fate of Assembly 265 and 40 Lok Sabha candidates will be decided by the voters today. 

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Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Piyush Goyal (Mumbai North), and Smriti Irani (Amethi), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (Raebareli) and National Conference's Omar Abdullah (Baramulla) are among the 695 candidates in the fray.

The seats in the fifth phase include five each in Bihar and Odisha, three in Jharkhand, 13 in Maharashtra, 14 in UP, seven in West Bengal, and one each in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Voting for 35 seats of the Odisha Assembly will also be held in the state's second phase of simultaneous polling.

According to the Election Commission, around 9.47 lakh polling officials have been deployed to facilitate balloting by 8.95 crore voters - 4.69 crore males, 4.26 crore females and 5,409 third-gender - across 94,732 polling stations.

"Polling stations are ready to welcome the voters with ample shade, drinking water, ramps, toilets and other basic facilities to ensure that polling takes place in a comfortable and secure environment. The concerned CEOs/DEOs and State machineries have been advised to take adequate measures to manage hot weather conditions in areas, where it is forecast," the EC said in a statement.

While the fifth phase has the least number of seats in all the phases, most of these are high-profile seats from where top Union Ministers and leaders of national and regional parties are contesting.

Other prominent leaders in this phase are Shiv Sena's Shrikant Shinde, son of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, from Kalyan, former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's son Karan Bhushan Singh in UP's Kaiserganj, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's daughter Rohini Acharya against BJP's Rajiv Pratap Rudy in Saran, Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas chief Chirag Paswan fighting from his father's bastion, Hajipur-SC (both Bihar), and Trinamool Congress candidate and TV anchor Rachna Banerjee versus actress-turned-politician Locket Chatterjee of the BJP in West Bengal's Hooghly.

(IANS)