39.23% voter turnout till 3 pm in Chhattisgarh's Raipur City South assembly bypoll

Raipur: A voter turnout of 39.23 per cent was recorded till 3 pm on Wednesday in the byelection to the Raipur City South assembly seat in Chhattisgarh, a poll official said.

Thirty candidates are in the fray for the bypoll in the constituency, though it is largely seen as a direct contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress.

"Voting began at 7 am amid tight security, and will continue till 6 pm. A voter turnout of 39.23 per cent was recorded till 3 pm," the official here said.

BJP candidate Sunil Kumar Soni and Congress nominee Akash Sharma cast their votes in Maharana Pratap School and Pt Sundarlal Sharma School polling booths here respectively.

The seat had fallen vacant 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 will take place on November 23.

According to poll officials, there are a total of 2,71,169 voters -- 1,33,800 males, 1,37,317 females and 52 transgenders -- in this constituency. As many as 253 polling booths have been set up for the bypoll and more than 1,000 security personnel have been deployed.

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