Chhattisgarh Assembly Election Result 2023: Sakti gives Congress' Charan Das Mahant a fifth term

Chhattisgarh assembly election result 2023: Speaker of the Chhattisgarh Assembly, 69-year-old Charandas Mahant, a prominent OBC leader of the Congress, has represented the Sakti constituency for four terms. He did win for the fifth time.

Congress' Charandas Mahant won Sakti seat with 81519 votes, while BJP's Dr. Khilawan Sahu secured second position with 69124 votes. Elections were held in two phases on November 7 and 17, this year, for the 90 Assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh. 

Speaker of the Chhattisgarh Assembly, 69-year-old Charandas Mahant, a prominent OBC leader of the Congress, represented the Sakti constituency for four terms. He first won the seat in 2018 and has also served as a three-term Lok Sabha MP and Union Minister of State.

In 1984, Charan Das Mahant resigned as Naib Tehsildar to pursue politics. He belongs to the Other Backward Classes and is often seen as a 'neutral face' among the many party factions in the state. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1998 and was re-elected in 1999 and 2009, when he was the lone Congress MP from Chhattisgarh.

Later in 1998, Mahant got his first Lok Sabha ticket from the Janjgir seat and became an MP. He served as the Union Minister of State for Agriculture in the Manmohan Singh government when the UPA came back to power for a second term in 2009.

But in 2014, he was defeated in the subsequent general election. He ran a tremendous and major campaign in 2019 for the Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections. He won and became the Assembly Speaker.

What happened in 2018 elections?

In the 2018 Chhattisgarh elections, Congress emerged as the clear winner, securing 68 out of 90 seats, while BJP won only 15. This marked the end of the 15-year rule of the BJP in the state. Bhupesh Baghel from the Congress assumed the role of Chief Minister, spearheading the new government.