Live : Nanded Assembly Election 2019

In the 2014 general elections, Congress's Maharashtra chief and former chief minister Ashok Chavan won the Nanded seat against his BJP rival by a margin of over 80,000 votes.

Maharashtra's Nanded Lok Sabha seat, a citadel of the Congress from where Chavan is now seeking a re-election, is located in Marathwada region. It is one the two seats that the Congress managed to win out of the 48 constituencies in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Mr Chavan is pitted against BJP's Pratap Chikhalikar, who is his staunch rival and currently an MLA from Loha seat in Latur district.

Both, Mr Chavan and Mr Chikhalikar, belong to the Maratha community.

In 2009, Ashok Chavan's brother-in-law Bhaskarrao Patil Khatgaonkar was the Congress MP from Nanded. He later switched over to the BJP during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Mr Chavan made his Lok Sabha debut in 1987 when he won a by-election against Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar in Nanded after his father Shankarrao Chavan, who was then Union finance minister and MP from the seat, became the state's chief minister.

However, in 1989, Ashok Chavan lost the seat to a Janata Dal candidate and then became active in state politics and contested Assembly polls from Nanded.

Though Nanded has always been a Congress bastion, the party lost the seat in 1989 and later in 2004.

There are 17,19,247 voters in the constituency, where 14 candidates are contesting the Lok Sabha poll.

The Samajwadi Party has fielded Abdul Samad Karim while Yashpal Bhinge, a Dhangar (shepherd) community member, is contesting on Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Aghadi's ticket.

The Nanded Lok Sabha constituency comprises Bhokar,Nanded-North, Nanded-South, Jalgaon, Deglur and Mukhed Assembly segments.