Live : Kalahandi Assembly Election 2023

Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat is one of the 21 constituencies in Odisha, the eastern State of India. The constituency comprises Nuapada, Khariar, Lanjigarh, Junagarh, Dharmgarh, Bhawanipatna and Narla segments. Out of these, Lanjigarh and Bhawanipatna are reserved for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, respectively.

Kalahandi will go to polls in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election 2019. The voting will take place on April 11.

Arka Keshari Deo, the sitting MP of the constituency, had won the seat in 2014 general election with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party ticket. He had defeated Pradeep Kumar Naik, BJP candidate, by a margin of 56,347 votes. BJD had garnered 33.19% of the total votes.

Congress candidate Bhakta Charan Das had got 3,07,967 votes in the 16th Lok Sabha election.

In the general election 2019, the ruling party BJD, has fielded Puspendra Singh Deo for the Kalahandi seat. Basanta Kumar Panda will contest for the seat with a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. Likewise, Bhakta Charan Das, who was the second runner up in 2014 election, will also contest this time with Congress ticket. In 2009, Bhakta Charan Das had won the seat.

Other contenders for the Kalahandi Lok Sabha seats are Kamalini Yadav from Bahujan Mukti Party and Chhabilal Nial from Ambedkarite Party of India. Hatiram Durga will contest as an independent candidate.

In 1957 and 1962, Pratap Keshari had won the seat. In 1980 and 1984, Congress candidates Ras Bihari and Jagannath Pattnaik were elected as MPs from this seat.

Giridhari Bhoi was the first elected MP from this seat. He had contested in 1952 as Ganatantra Parishad party candidate. It was a regional party in Odisha from 1950 to 1962 and later merged with the Swatantra Party.

In 2014, 1.87% of the votes in this constituency were registered under NOTA.