Three held for post-poll violence in Aul

Bhubaneswar, April 20 :

Three Congress workers were arrested in Odisha’s Kendrapada district in connection with the Friday post-poll violence that left one person dead and four others injured in the region, an official said Sunday.

“We have arrested three people so far. All belong to the Congress party,” District Superintendent of Police Rabi Narayan Behera told IANS.

The arrested persons have been identified as Bhikari Barik, his wife and daughter.

The clash broke out between the supporters of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Congress in Aul area of the district Friday night over alleged election irregularities, a day after voting for assembly and Lok Sabha was held in the area.

The authorities clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 Saturday across the district after violence and protests were reported from other places of the region.

“The prohibitory orders will remain in-force till Sunday evening,” Behera said, adding the orders situation was returning to normal in the district.

Accusing the ruling party of rigging and tampering the electronic voting machines (EVM), the opposition parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, Saturday staged separate demonstrations in many places in the region defying the prohibitory orders.

Senior BJP leader Bijay Mohapatra said his party would soon submit a list of poll related illegal activities by the ruling party to the election commission and demand for a probe.

Simultaneous elections for 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly seats in the state were held in two phases April 10 and April 17. The polling was held in the district of Kendrapada Thursday in the second and final phase.

The footage of a local television channel which went viral on social networking sites like Facebook and twitter, also showed how some people allegedly resorting to vote rigging in Aul area of the district.

It showed a man walking into the electronic voting machine enclosure along with a woman voter and helping her to press a specific button, while the polling officials were mere spectators.

(IANS)