A total of 1,611 candidates are now set to try their luck from 21 lok Sabha and 147 Assembly constituencies in the State. Though the number of nominations indicates that there would be multi-cornered contest in all the lok Sabha and Assembly seat, the battle of ballots would be confined to three major political parties, the ruling BJD, the Congress and the BJP.
While 196 candidates are contesting from the 21 lok Sabha constituencies, 1,415 are in the fray for 147 Assembly constituencies, according to the final list published by the Election Commission of India.The first phase poll would be held on April 10 in 10 lok Sabha and 70 Assembly seats and the rest seats will go to poll on April 17.
As many as 668 Assembly candidates 98 lS candidates are in the fray in the first phase. During the scrutiny 77 nominations were rejected and 48 candidates withdrew their nomination papers.After the withdrawal of nominations for the second phase, 747 candidates for the 77 Assembly constituencies and 98 candidates for the 11 lok Sabha seats are in the fray. Three candidates withdrew their nominations out of the 101 valid lS nominations while four of the total 105 nomination papers filed were rejected during scrutiny.
While a total of 832 candidates had filed nominations for the 77 Assembly seats, nominations of 784 were found valid out of which 37 withdrew their candidature.While in the first phase Kalahandi lS seat recorded the highest 15 number of candidates, in the second phase, Dhenkanal lok Sabha seat is witnessing a 12 cornered contest, followed by 11 candidates in Bhubaneswar while lowest seven candidates are in the fray each in Kendrapada, Puri and Jagatsinghpur lok Sabha seats. There are eight candidates each in Keonjhar and Bhadrakh, nine candidates each in Mayurbhanj and Jajpur while Cuttack and Bhadrakh lok Sabha seats are witnessing ten cornered contest.
Seven sitting MPs of ruling party are seeking re-election in their respective seats and facing a tough battle to retain the seats in view of the multi-cornered contest. The sitting BJD MPs are Pinaki Mishra (Puri), Baijayanta Panda (Kendrapada), Tathagata Satpathy (Dhenkanal), Bhatruhari Mahtab (Cuttack), Arjun Sethy (Bhadrak), Prasanna Patsani (Bhubaneswar) and Siddhant Mohapatra (Brahmapur)
Similarly, six sitting Congress MPs Hemananda Biswal (Sundargarh), Amarnath Pradhan (Sambalpur), Bhakta Charan Das (Kalahandi), Sanjay Bhoi (Sambalpur) and Pradip Majhi (Nabarangpur) and Srikant Jena (Baleswar) Union Minister and Congress candidate for Baleswar Srikanta Jena is also facing a tough fight this time in Balasore as BJP candidate Pratap Chandra Sarangi and BJD’s Rabidra Jena are taking on him.
This time Bibhu Prasad Tari, sitting MP Jagatsinghpur is fighting the election as Congress candidate.This time the candidates belonging to CPI, CPI(M), BSP, TMC, Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), Aama Odisha Party and Odisha Jana Morcha(OJM) are also in the fray.
In the second phase among Assembly seats, Morada is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with record 24 number of candidate are in the fray followed by 20 in Ekamra-Bhubaneswar, 17 in Rairangpur and 15 in Bhubaneswar Central.
The prominent Assembly candidates who are testing their electoral luck include BJP canadidate Bijoy Mohapatra from Mahakalapada, BJD candidates, Health Minister Dr Damodara Rout from Paradeep, Agriculture Minister Debi Mishra from Badamba, Energy Minsier Arun Kumar Sahu from Nayagarah , Government Chief Whip Pravat Tripathy from Banki and law Minister Maheswar Mohanty from Puri.
Similarly, Congress candidates Jayadev Jena (Anandpur), lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohaptra (Brahmagiri), Prasad Harichandaan (Satyabadi) are in the fray for the second phase.
