Raipur South By-election : Sunil Soni Declared BJP Candidate; Pramod Dubey Likely to Face Off from Congress

Raipur
The BJP has officially announced its candidate for the Raipur South Assembly by-election, selecting former MP Sunil Soni. Meanwhile, on Saturday, Congress leader Pramod Dubey collected his nomination form, although Congress has yet to announce its candidate. The BJP has released its list of candidates for 25 Lok Sabha and Assembly seats across 8 states.

The Raipur South seat became vacant after BJP MLA Brijmohan Agrawal was elected as an MP. Voting for this seat is scheduled for November 13, with the results to be announced on November 23. The Election Commission declared the by-election on October 15.

Senior Congress leader and former Mayor Pramod Dubey, who currently serves as Chairman of the Municipal Corporation, purchased his nomination form on Saturday.

According to the district administration, on October 18, the first day of the Raipur South Assembly by-election process, eight candidates purchased nomination forms. These include Jaya Rao from the Lok Jan Shakti Party Jan Shakti Sabha, Ramkumar Ajgalle from the Sundar Samaj Party, Independent candidate Radheshwar Gaikwad, and Champalal from the Right to Recall Party.

Other candidates who acquired nomination forms include Independent candidate Ashish Pandey, Neeraj Saini from Dhun Sena, Manish Srivastava from the Samajwadi Party, and Pramod Dubey from the Indian National Congress. The final date for submitting nomination forms is October 25, with the deadline for withdrawing candidacies set for October 30.

In the 2018 Raipur South election, the seat witnessed a closely contested race. Since the seat’s formation, Congress candidates have been consistently defeated by significant margins across four elections until 2023. In 2018, Congress candidate Kanhaiya Agrawal lost by the narrowest margin, with Brijmohan Agrawal securing a lead of just 17,496 votes.

Facing anti-incumbency during the fourth election since Chhattisgarh’s statehood, Brijmohan narrowly retained the Raipur seat. However, in the 2023 election, he decisively defeated Congress’s Dr. Mahant Ramsundar Das by a margin of over 67,000 votes.