There are 266 contenders vying for 28 Assembly seats

Bhubaneswar: Nomination papers for 28 Assembly segments under the four Odisha Lok Sabha seats, where voting is scheduled for May 13, have been completed. In the fourth round of elections, 266 candidates submitted 483 nomination papers for 28 Assembly seats, according to statistics made public by the Election Commission on Friday. Twenty candidates have submitted nominations for the Assembly segment’s Berhampur seat, while 14 candidates have each registered for the Digapahandi and Koraput Assembly seats.

Sarat Pattanayak, the head of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee, has submitted nominations for the Kalahandi Lok Sabha constituency’s Nuapada Assembly seat. Sidhant Mohapatra, a well-known actor and BJP activist, submitted nominations for the Digapahandi Assembly constituency.

For the parliamentary seats of Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Berhampur, and Koraput, 39 candidates—including 10 independents—have submitted nominations. For the Koraput Lok Sabha constituency, up to 13 candidates have submitted nominations, compared to only 4 for the Nabarangpur Lok Sabha seat. Eleven candidates have submitted nominations for the Lok Sabha seats in Kalahandi and Berhampur, respectively.

The nominations for the Koraput Lok Sabha constituency have been submitted by prominent Congressman Saptagiri Ulaka. Pradeep Kumar Majhi, the leader of the BJD, has submitted nominations for the Nabarangpur Lok Sabha seat. Nominations for the Berhampur parliamentary seat have been submitted by BJP leader Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy.

The candidates have until April 29 to withdraw their nominations, after which the nominations will be examined on Friday.

However, nominations for the fifth round of voting, which is set on May 20 in 35 Assembly segments under five Lok Sabha constituencies—Bargarh, Sundargarh, Bolangir, Kandhamal, and Aska—began on Friday. May 3 is the deadline for submitting nominations.