The candidates contesting elections for the key Rourkela Assembly seat include those of the major parties, the BJD, the BJP and the Congress and they have started campaigning in the steel city and its adjoining rural areas.

However, former Union Minister Dilip Ray, now the BJP nominee, seems to be in the forefront of the campaign. And Ray and his party rank and file here are particularly upbeat as Narendra Modi is scheduled to address a meeting in the city on April 4.

An early riser, soft-spoken Ray’s day begins at 5 am when he undertakes campaign with a door-to-door campaign, which has left all his rivals behind. “Our family members were surprised to see Dilip babu coming to our house early in the morning to ask about the wellbeing of my ailing mother,” said a tribal of the Panposh area.

“It is a personal touch of Ray that is making all the difference,” said his neighbour Md Abdul. Most significantly, members of the minority are rallying round Ray in large numbers, making the Congress and the BJD candidates jittery, said he.

A resident of Udit Nagar, Tapas Parida, said that though the BJD candidate and incumbent MlA Sarada Nayak is way behind in the campaign trail, his followers are working hard to get him re-elected for a third straight term.With the election date of April 10 nearing fast, the BJD is scaling up its campaign in the slum areas where a lot of resources are allegedly being spent to win over voters.While the Congress candidate and a former local MlA Pravat Mohapatra is also in his campaign trail, a number of his party workers have, meanwhile, switched over to the BJP and the BJD giving him a tough time.