Bhubaneswar, Nov 17 () As many as 13 candidates including the nominees of ruling BJD, and opposition BJP and Congress on Thursday filed their nominations for the December 5 by-election to the Padampur assembly constituency in Odisha.
November 17 (today) was the last day for filing of the nominations.
“The nomination filing process has been completed today and 13 people including the nominees of political parties have filed their nominations today,” said Bargarh Collector Monisha Banerjee.
BJD’s Barsha Singh Bariha, Pradeep Purohit from BJP and Satya Bhushan Sahu from Congress have filed their nominations for the by-election.
Senior leaders of the three political parties were present with their candidates when they were submitting the papers to the returning officer.
Although the nomination was open from November 10, no contestant filed papers till Wednesday evening as agitating farmers of the sub-division were staging dharna before the office since November 1.
They are demanding payment of crop insurance and input subsidy. The farmers had requested the political parties not to file papers till their problems were resolved. They also prevented BJP nominee Purohit from filing his nomination on November 14.
As per schedule, the scrutiny of nominations will be held on November 18 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is November 21.
The voting will be conducted from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on December 5 and the counting of votes and declaration of results will be conducted on December 10.
The by-election was necessitated following the death of BJD MLA Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha on October 3.
bbm/pgh