Maharaja Pratap Keshari Deo was the last ruler of

Kalahandi State Kalahandi State, also known as Karond State, was one of the princely states of India during the period of the British Raj. It was recognized as a state in 1874 and had its capital in Bhawanipatna. Its last ruler signed the accession to the India ...

1939-1947 and an Indian politician in post-independence India. He was elected from the

Kalahandi Kalahandi (locally pronounced ''Kalahani'') is a district of Odisha in India. Archaeological evidence of Stone Age and Iron Age human settlement has been recovered from the region. Asurgarh offered an advanced, well civilised, cultured and ur ...

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

to the Lower House of the Indian Parliament the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

. He was deputy Leader of the Opposition, Orissa Legislative Assembly, 1952—1956.

Maharaja of Kalahandi State

During the time Deo ruled Kalahandi, a major irrigation project was initiated on the Indravati River to build

Indravati Dam Indravati Dam is a gravity dam on the Indravati River a tributary of Godavari, about 90 km from Bhawanipatna in the state of Odisha in India. It is connected to the main Indravati reservoir via 4.32 km long and 7 m dia head race tunnel de ...

, and along with engineer Bhubaneswar Behera and administrator Ram Chandra Patra he visualized and prepared the blue print. This plan was disrupted by governmental changeds in the early post-indepdence period. In 1948 Kalahandi lost its state status and was merged into

Political career

Deo was a Member of Orissa Legislative Assembly and subsequently of the Lok Sabha. As a member of

Swatantra Party The Swatantra Party was an Indian classical liberal political party, that existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly soci ...

Deo aligned with

Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo Maharaja Sir Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo KCIE (31 March 1912 – 23 February 1975) was an Indian politician and the last ruler of the princely state of Patna in Odisha before Indian independence in 1947. He was the President of the Ganatantra P ...

who became the chief minister in 1967. Deo initiated Kalahandi Science College in 1960, the predecessor of

Kalahandi University Kalahandi University, formerly Government Autonomous College is a state public university located in Bhawanipatna, the district headquarters of Kalahandi district of Odisha, India History The University started as ''Kalahandi Science College'' ...

. As a member of parliament he continue to push for the

and rail connectivity from Kesinga to Ambaguda via Bhawanipatna and Junagarh. In 1962-1963 he had pointed out in the Parliament that Parkers had done a railway line survey from Kesinga to Nabarangpur to join Kothavalasa-Kirandul (KK) line, because Koraput-Kothavalasa and Koraput-Rayagada are e-special category railway routes having many tunnels and high-level bridges; the speed is limited (often less than 50 kmph) and number of wagon can’t exceed 30 during mineral transportations in these two routes. Subsequently,

Lanjigarh–Junagarh section The Lanjigarh–Junagarh section belongs to the Sambalpur Sambalpur () is the fifth largest city in the Indian State of Odisha. It is located on the banks of river Mahanadi, with a population of 335,761 (as per 2011 census). Prehistoric se ...

under

East Coast Railway Zone The East Coast Railway (abbreviated ECoR) is one of the 19 railway zones of Indian Railways. It came into existence on 1 April 2003. The headquarters of the zone are at Bhubaneswar, Odisha History Consequent upon the parliament's approval, Ea ...

was completed in March 2014, which was sanctioned when local MP

Bhakta Charan Das Bhakta Charan Das (born 26 November 1958) is an Indian politician. He was a member of the Indian Parliament and represented the Kalahandi constituency in the 15th Lok Sabha. Das graduated from the Sambalpur University and, with a backgroun ...

was minister of state for railway in 1990-91. He had a special interest in archeology and established the archeology society of Kalahandi.

References

{{Authority control Lok Sabha members from Odisha India MPs 1957–1962 India MPs 1962–1967 India MPs 1967–1970 India MPs 1971–1977 India MPs 1977–1979 1919 births Possibly living people People from Kalahandi district