BJP candidate leading in Raipur City South assembly bypoll

Raipur: BJP candidate Sunil Kumar Soni was leading by 785 votes over Congress rival Akash Sharma in the Raipur City South assembly bypoll in the first round of counting of votes, officials said.

The counting of votes began at 8 am on Saturday, they said.

The ruling BJP and opposition Congress are striving to win the constituency, where the by-election was necessitated after sitting BJP legislator and former state minister Brijmohan Agrawal resigned following his election to Lok Sabha from Raipur parliamentary constituency.

The counting of votes in the bypoll in Raipur City South seat began at 8 am at the Government Engineering College Sejbahar here, where adequate number of security personnel have been deployed, a poll official said

As per the early trends, BJP's Soni was leading by a margin of 785 votes against Congress candidate Sharma after the first round of counting, he said.

Soni secured 3,583 votes, while Sharma got 2,798 votes after the first round of counting.

A voter turnout of 50.50 per cent was recorded in the bypoll held on November 13 for the seat located in Raipur district.

Though 30 contestants were in the fray, the main fight was between the BJP and the Congress.

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 Congress rival.

The BJP had registered a landslide victory in the last year's state polls, winning 54 seats out of 90 in the state while the Congress had won 35 and Gondwana Gantantra Party bagged one seat.