Amid celebration of democracy, renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has created a sculpture using 500 kg of mangoes at Puri beach, with an appeal to voters to exercise their franchise in the ongoing elections.

Pattnaik created the sculpture on a 2,000 sq ft area with texts on sand that reads 'Chunav ka Parv Desh ka Garv' and 'Your Vote Your Voice'.

Polling for six parliamentary constituencies and 42 assembly segments in Odisha are underway in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections. Pattnaik said the sand art took around five hours to complete with help from students of his institute.

"This is summer time and mangoes are the favourite of all, so to appeal to electors to vote tomorrow, we used mangoes in our sculpture," he said on Friday.