Though BJD was enjoying a position of pre-eminence in Pallahara Assembly seat but with MLA Mahes Sahu shifted to contest from Dhenkanal Lok Sabha seat, former BJD leader Rabi Pani joining BJP and BJD rebel Sandeep Pradhan filing nomination as Independent, the contest in all likelihood to be triangular.
Pallahara consists of two blocks, such as Pallahara and Kaniha. There are 27 panchayats in Pallahara and 19 panchayats in Kaniha Block.
Patayat Saheb Mrutyunjaya Pal had filed his nomination as Independent from Pallahara in 1951, who was a local of Pallahara. Subsequently, the candidates fielded by different parties like Congress, BJP and BJD happened to be from Talcher and Parjang. But Pallahara general voters this time demanded the parties to nominate local candidates.
Only the BJD has chosen local candidate, Block Chairman Mukesh Pal as the nominee this time. Now, the BJP has emerged as the main rival of the BJD after former BJD leader and former BJD Chief Whip in Assembly Rabi Pani joined the saffron party and is set to play a vital role in the election. Pani was a Lok Sabha member in 1989 and MLA of Pallahara in 2009. He had defeated Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan from the seat.
Meanwhile, Sandeep Pradhan , a local candidate, who was a BJD ticket aspirant but deprived of the ticket, will pose a challenge for the BJD as he has filed his nomination as an Independent.
BJP candidate Ashok Mohanty and Congress candidate Subrat Garnayak belong to Kaniha Block while BJD candidate Pal is from Pallahara block. Pallahara block consists of three zones in which while the BJD has a good footing in one zone, in the other two, the BJP has a strong base.