Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Congress aims to break BJP’s hold on Mandla in Madhya Pradesh

Lok Sabha Elections 2019 constituency watch of Mandla, Madhya Pradesh. The BJP has retained the Jabalpur Lok Sabha constituency since 1996.

Mandla is one of the 29 Lok Sabha constituencies in Madhya Pradesh that goes to polls on April 29. The Mandla seat is reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

An election official examines an EVM at a distribution centre. (AFP)

The Mandla Lok Sabha constituency has regularly voted for the BJP’s Faggan Singh Kulaste since 1996, except in 2009, when it voted in Congress’s Basori Singh Masram. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s candidate Faggan Singh Kulaste had returned to power defeating Congress’s Omkar Singh Markam by a margin of 110,469 votes.

WATCH: LS Elections | Kerala contest to SC hurdle: Rahul Gandhi’s campaign analysed

This time around, the BJP has once again fielded its Faggan Singh Kulaste against Congress’s Kamal Maravi. While the Congress is hoping to break Kulaste’s hold on the constituency, the BJP will be banking on Kulaste to win the seat for the party.

Read: All you need to know about Madhya Pradesh

The general elections will be held across India in seven phases beginning April 11 and the counting of votes will take place on May 23.

Here’s all you need to know about the Mandla Lok Sabha constituency:

State: Madhya Pradesh

Name of the Lok Sabha constituency: Mandla (ST)

Contesting Candidates: Faggan Singh Kulaste (BJP), Kamal Maravi (Congress)

Date of polling: April 29

Sitting MP, Party: Faggan Singh Kulaste, BJP

Winning margin in 2014: 110,469

Runner up name, party: Omkar Singh Markam, Congress

Number of voters in 2014: 1,218,661

Percentage of votes polled in 2014: 81

Number of polling booths in 2014: 2,334

Number of women voters: 576,603