Report by Kahnu Nanda; Jagatsinghpur : The final leg of Panchayat polls held in Erasama block for 4 ZP seats, 24 Sarpanch, 25 Samiti member including above 500 ward member posts on Sunday passed off peacefully baring few stray incidents, while reports said that unidentified miscreants snatched away ballot box in one booth locates at Nuaratnapur polling station in Kunjakothi Panchayat.
However re polling in 10 booths at Bagadia Panchayat held on Sunday too witnessed peaceful elections, overall about 76 percent polling was recorded in the last phase of polling, informed district Panchayat officer , R K Sahoo.

Though the ZP poll results were waiting official declaration but according to booth wise vote counting after completion of fifth phase of polls, BJD contestants in 3 ZP seats were well ahead than their Congress counterparts while in 1 seat Congress candidate was leading to his BJD contestant in Erasama block.

In Erasama block the election battle for 4 ZP seats were mainly fought between BJD and Congress, in Zone1 Santilata Sethy , Zone 2 Susama Mohapatra .and Zone 3 Chandra Bhanu Mallick were good margin ahead in term of votes cast in their favour against congress rivals Jhunilata Das, Priyatama Rout and Ananta Mallick.

While in Zone 4 that included proposed Posco project region BJD did not perform well. Congress candidate Sarada Jena a former ZP member was advancing in significant margin against his BJD rival Nimain Charana Swain a former Erasama block chairman and a close confident of former minister Damodar Rout.
In last ZP elections held in Erasama block in the year 2007, Congress candidates had bagged 2, BJD 1 and independent 1 seat out of 4 ZP zones spread the block.