Kriang Kalptinan, a Thai politician who represented Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand’s House of Representatives and later served as deputy interior minister, died at Vichaiyut Hospital in Bangkok on Aug. 11, 2026, Thairath reported.
Kalptinan’s parliamentary career began in 1995, when he won a seat in the House of Representatives from Ubon Ratchathani’s first electoral district. He won re-election in 1996 and further House terms in 2001 and 2005. His party affiliations changed from the Democrat Party to the New Aspiration Party and then the Thai Rak Thai Party.
In 2007, Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the Thai Rak Thai Party. Kalptinan was among the party’s executives barred from political activity for five years, interrupting his parliamentary career.
After the ban, he returned to senior party leadership in 2012 as a deputy leader of the Pheu Thai Party. In September 2019, as a Pheu Thai deputy leader, he joined the party’s response to severe flooding in Ubon Ratchathani, criticizing repeated shelter relocations and the lack of advance warning for residents. He held the deputy-leader post again in 2020.
In May 2023, he returned to the House as a Pheu Thai lawmaker elected from the party’s slate rather than a local district. In September 2023, he became deputy interior minister in the government led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. In that role, he called for disaster management to emphasize prevention over repeated relief, with earlier water planning and coordination among government agencies.
