CHHATTISGARHCounting of votes in Raipur City South assembly constituency of this state, where a bypoll was held on November 13, began on Saturday morning.The vote count commenced at 8 am at the Government Engineering College at Sejbahar according to an official.The ruling BJP and main opposition Congress were locked in a direct fight in this seat, where the by-election was necessitated after sitting BJP legislator and former state minister Brijmohan Agrawal resigned following his election to the Lok Sabha from Raipur parliamentary constituency.The voter turnout in the bypoll for the seat located in Raipur district was 50.50 per cent.Postal ballots will first be taken up for counting followed by votes cast in the EVMs, the official said, adding that the entire process will go on 14 tables in 19 rounds.As many as 30 candidates were in the fray for the bypoll, though it was largely seen as a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.The BJP fielded Sunil Kumar Soni, a former Raipur MP and ex-Raipur Mayor, while the opposition’s nominee Akash Sharma, a young face, is the incumbent president of the state unit of the Youth Congress.At the hustings, the BJP highlighted pro-women and pro-farmers measures taken by the Vishnu Deo Sai government, which included launching of the Mahtari Vandan Yojana under which married women beneficiaries are being provided a monthly assistance of Rs 1,000.During its campaign, the Congress accused BJP candidate Sunil Kumar Soni of being inactive during his tenure as an MP from 2019 to 2024 and targeted the BJP government over the “deteriorating” law and order situation in the state.In the last year’s assembly election, Agrawal had secured 1,09,263 votes in Raipur City South seat and won by the highest margin of 67,719 votes against his nearest rival from Congress.In the assembly elections last year, BJP had registered a landslide victory winning 54 seats out of 90 in the state, while the Congress bagged 35 seats and the Gondwana Gantantra Party one seat.
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