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Straight fight expected between Congress, BJP-BJD in 21 Orissa seats

A straight fight is expected between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Biju Janata Dal alliance in the 21 parliamentary constituencies in Orissa on September 25, though there are between three and nine candidates in every seat.

While six parliamentary constituencies will witness triangular contests, four seats are looking forward to four-cornered fights.

Nine parliamentary constituencies will see multi-cornered contest, with Puri having the highest number -- of nine candidates.

The Balasore Lok Sabha seat comes second with eight candidates, followed by seven each in Dhenkanal, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

While Koraput (ST), Nawarangpur (ST), Bolangir, Keonjhar (ST), Kendrapara and Berhampur have triangular contests, Phulbani, Jajpur (SC), Jagatsinghpur and Aska have four candidates each. Six candidates were in the fray in Sundergarha (ST), Deogarh and Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seats. Sambalpur, Kalahandi and Bhadrak (SC) will witness five-cornered contests.

The first phase of election will witness the highest number of seven candidates in Dhenkanal, triangular contest in four and a four-cornered contest in one constituency.

There are five candidates for two and six-cornered contests in six seats going to polls in the first phase of elections.

As many as 40 candidates from six national parties are among the 105 candidates in the race. These include the Congress (20), the BJP (9), the Communist Party of India-Marxist (2), the Communist Party of India (3), the Bahujan Samaj Party (4), and the Janata Dal (United) (2).

Among the regional parties, the BJD has fielded 12 candidates, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (7), the Shiv Sena (3), the Janata Party (1), the Nationalist Congress Party (3), unrecognised parties (16) and independents (23).

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