Cuttack, April 15: Naveen Patnaik’s BJD appears to have a distinct edge in at least four of the seven Assembly seats under the Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency that go to polls in the second phase of elections on Thursday.

Four of the seats have caught attention as agriculture minister Debi Prasad Mishra and party chief whip Pravat Kumar Tripathy are seeking re-election from Baramba and Banki, respectively.

State general secretaries of the BJP and the Congress Nayan Kishore Mohanty and Suresh Mohapatra, respectively, are also contesting from Choudwar-Cuttack. Former Congress MP Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, who has formed the Ama Odisha Party, is contesting from Khandapada.

It appears that the BJD is in the fight in all the seven Assembly seats with the Congress a contender in six and the BJP in two. In 2009 Assembly polls, the BJD had won all the seats.

Apart from its once bastion Barabati-Cuttack, from where it had won in 1990, 2000 and 2004, the BJP has crept into the fight in Choudwar-Cuttack with state general secretary Nayan Kishore Mohanty in the fray.

“The biggest asset of the party candidates is our leader Naveen Patnaik and his clean public image,” said Subash Singh, BJD general secretary.

The BJP, on the other hand, is visibly handicapped by lack of organisation in other constituencies.

Barabati-Cuttack is witnessing a battle with both city Congress president Mohammed Moquim and former district BJP president Pradip Swain emerging as contenders for wresting the seat from BJD’s Debashis Samantaray, who is seeking re-election from the seat.

In Baramba, the agriculture minister, who is seeking re-election for the fifth consecutive term, seems to have neutralised any anti-incumbency factor and gained a clear edge in a straight fight with Congress candidate Laxmi Devi.

Congress rebel candidate Surya Kishore Mohanty, a member of the Cuttack Zilla Parishad, seems to have made things easier for Mishra.

In a triangular contest in Choudwar-Cuttack, Congress’s Suresh Mohapatra and BJP’s Nayan Kishore Mohanty have emerged as contenders to wrest the seat from BJD’s Pravat Ranjan Biswal, who is eyeing a hat-trick win.

In Banki, BJD chief whip Pravat Kishore Tripathy is locked in a battle to retain his seat with former Cuttack district Congress president Rabindra Mallick emerging as a strong contender among the 10 other candidates in the fray. Tripathy had won from the seat in 2009 after losing it to the Congress in 2004.

Ama Odisha Party chief Soumya Ranjan Patnaik is fighting a three-cornered ballot fight with BJD’s Anubhav Patnaik and Congress’s Binodini Mohanty in Khandapada Assembly seat.

The BJD has fielded Anubhav in place of the sitting MLA this time.

In Athgarh, former minister and firebrand leader Ranendra Pratap Swain also seems to be comfortably placed against Congress’s Bichitrananda Muduli, who has emerged as a contender for the seat among the four other candidates in the fray. Swain is seeking re-election for the sixth consecutive term.

The BJD seems to be ahead in Cuttack Sadar, which is witnessing a straight fight between party candidate Chandrasarathi Behera and BJP’s Dilip Mallik. In 2009, Chandrasarathi was elected from adjoining Salepur, while his father and senior BJD leader Kalindi Behera was elected from Cuttack-Sadar.