May 28th 2024.
On a Monday in Khurda, a group of passionate BJP workers gathered outside the sub-collector office to protest against the arrest of their party's Assembly nominee, Prasanta Kumar Jagadev. The workers demanded his immediate and unconditional release, as he had been taken into custody for allegedly damaging an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) during the polling on May 25. The workers were determined to make their voices heard and even threatened to block the national highway and call for a bandh in Khurda town if Jagadev was not released.
The BJP workers were convinced that the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) had conspired to arrest Jagadev, who is running for the Khurda Assembly seat in the current elections. They demanded that the CCTV footage from the polling booth where the alleged incident took place be made public in order to prove Jagadev's innocence. Aparajita Sarangi, the BJP MP and Lok Sabha candidate for Bhubaneswar, also joined in the protest and questioned why the CCTV footage had not been examined yet. She insisted that the police make the footage public for everyone to see.
Jagadev's arrest had caused quite a stir in the community, with locals claiming that he had not caused any harm to the EVM. The BJP workers were puzzled as to why the CCTV footage had not been analyzed yet, which added to their suspicions of a conspiracy against their candidate. On Saturday, Jagadev and his wife had gone to cast their votes at the Kaunripatna booth in the Begunia Assembly segment when he was taken into custody by the police.
The Superintendent of Police in Khurda, Avinash Kumar, explained that Jagadev was arrested based on an FIR filed by the presiding officer of the polling booth in Bolagad block's Kaunripatna, where he is a registered voter. Jagadev was charged with various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of People's Act. The presiding officer had alleged that Jagadev had caused disturbances at the booth, obstructed the voting process, and even verbally abused the polling personnel. This incident had taken place on May 25, when the state was holding simultaneous polling for six Lok Sabha seats and 42 Assembly constituencies.
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