A total of 118 candidates are in the fray for the elections to the Dhenkanal Municipal Council to be held on September 19.
The Congress, the BJD and the BJP have pitted their nominees for all the 23 wards while the Kalinga Sena has its candidates in 19 wards. The Utkal Bharat is fighting the electoral battle in three wards. Besides, there are as many as 27 Independents in the fray the rebel candidates of the three major parties, the Congress, the BJD and the BJP or as the sympathisers of the Aam Aadmi Party.
The municipality’s 47,484 voters will exercise their franchise in this election. Though the BJD had won only three wards in the 2008 polls, this time it appears to be much ahead in propaganda in comparison to the Congress and the BJP. Former MlA and AICC member Sudhir Kumar Samal, who is Congress in charge as the chairman of party elections committee, is found to be inactive on the plea that his ailing father is under treatment in a Bhubaneswar hospital.