BJP fielded Balabhadra Majhi from Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency to run for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency will go to polls on May 13, 2024. Congress gave a ticket to Bhujabal Majhi to fight the BJP candidate and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) gave a ticket to Pradeep Kumar Majhi.
Balabhadra Majhi was elected to the parliament in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ticket but he later in March 2019 joined BJP when BJD did not give ticket to him. Balabhadra Majhi is an alma mater of NIT Rourkela with a BSc in engineering. He joined the railway services but later joined the politics before 7 years of his retirement.
In the 2019 elections, Ramesh Chandra Majhi of the Biju Janata Dal won the Lok Sabha elections by securing 392504 votes, whereas the Congress candidate Pradeep Kumar Majhi lost by a margin of 41634. Last time, the voter turnout in the elections was 79.52%. The BJP candidate Balabhadra Majhi secured 23% votes out of the total votes and 3% of people used NOTA in the constituency in 2019.
The Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency comprises Umerkote, Jharigam, Nabarangpur, Dabugam, Kotpad, Malkangiri, and Chitrakonda. 5 out of 7 assembly seats were won by the BJD candidates and 2 by BJP. The constituency has been a Congress stronghold in the past however from the last two general elections BJD candidates have secured the parliamentary seat here. However, in the last election, BJP candidate Balabhadra Majhi secured an additional 15.96% votes in comparison to the BJP candidate during the 2014 elections.
Nabarangpur Lok Sabha constituency is an ST category parliament seat that comprises the Koraput district, Malkangiri, and Nabarangpur districts. The literacy rate of the constituency is very low at 39.31%. Schedule Tribe (ST) constitutes the majority with 55.64% of the total population. The SC and Muslim populations in the constituency are 16.78% and 1.7% respectively.
The counting will be held on June 4 and subsequently the Lok Sabha election result 2024 will be announced.