The Congress has picked sitting Kalka MLA Pradeep Chaudhary in its attempt to retain the seat in the upcoming Haryana assembly elections.
In 2019, Chaudhary had defeated BJP candidate Latika Sharma by 5,931 votes, wresting the Kalka seat after his defeat to Sharma in 2014, when he had contested on an INLD ticket.
Polarisation of Jat votes, especially of the Gurjar community, had helped spur Chaudhary’s win in 2019. Kalka constituency, which comprises Pinjore and Kalka, has sizeable voters from the Brahmin, Aggarwal and Punjabi communities, while rural areas of the assembly segment are inhabited by the Jat community, which has a stronghold in the Raipur Rani belt and some villages of the Morni area.
In 2021, the assembly had unseated Chaudhary after he was convicted and sentenced to three-year imprisonment in a case of rioting by a Himachal Pradesh high court. After nearly three months, Chaudhary’s membership was restored after the court stayed his conviction.