Raipur: BJP candidate from Raipur Brijmohan Agarwal is leading by 1,88,890 votes against Congress's Vikas Upadhyay, according to early trends on Tuesday. Agarwal is an eight-time MLA (1993-2023), who is up against Congress leader Vikas Upadhyay. Agarwal is the School Education Minister in the state government, and is counted among the senior leaders in Chhattisgarh BJP. Vikas Upadhyay, on the other hand, is considered the face of the youth brigade of Congress in Chhattisgarh.
The constituency, which comprises nine assembly seats (Baloda Bazar, Bhatapara, Dharsiwa, Raipur City, Raipur City West, Raipur City North, Raipur City South, Arang and Abhanpur), is a BJP bastion as the party has never lost from here since 1996.
2024 polls: The total number of registered voters in this constituency in 2024 polls was 2375379, and the seat saw a voting turnout of 66.82% (1587116 total count of votes), according to the Election Commission’s data. The seat went to polls in phase 3 on May 7, 2024.
In the 2019 LS Polls, BJP’s Sunil Kumar Soni won from Raipur, getting 837,902 votes, comprising 60.01% of the total number of votes polled. He defeated Congress' Pramod Dubey by a margin of 3,48,238 votes. In 2014, Ramesh Bais of BJP had recorded his 6th straight win from this seat, polling 654,922 votes (52.36%) and defeating Satya Narayan Sharma of Congress by a margin of 1,71,646 votes. In 2009, Bais had defeated Congress heavyweight Bhupesh Baghel by about 58,000 votes.
