In BJP’s Raipur bastion, fresh off 8th Assembly win, Brijmohan Agrawal sits pretty despite infra concerns

A crumbling sewage and drainage system, polluted ponds infested with mosquitoes, dusty roads, and a lack of public transport — these are some of the issues being faced by the residents of Raipur, Chhattisgarh’s capital, which goes to the Lok Sabha polls in the third phase on May 7 along with six remaining seats of the state.

The BJP has been winning the Raipur parliamentary seat continuously since 1996. In 2009, BJP veteran Ramesh Bais defeated Congress heavyweight Bhupesh Baghel by about 58,000 votes in the constituency that Bais represented for seven terms. In the 2019 polls, the BJP’s Sunil Soni trounced the Congress’s Pramod Dubey by about 3.48 lakh votes.

This time, the BJP has fielded from the constituency one of its most prominent leaders in the state, Brijmohan Agrawal, 65, who won the Raipur South Assembly seat in the November 2023 state polls for the eighth consecutive term, becoming a minister in the party-led government for the fifth time.

To take on Agrawal, the Congress has fielded its former MLA from Raipur west Assembly segment, Vikas Upadhyay, who had lost in the 2023 election. Agrawal, whose 2023 Assembly victory margin of 67,851 votes was the highest in Chhattisgarh, now says he will “create history” in the Lok Sabha polls as well. This is his first plunge into the Lok Sabha election.

Upadhyay has alleged that the BJP as well as Agrawal have “failed” to ensure proper infrastructure and civic amenities in the capital, questioning his rival’s track record over the last three decades during which he has been an MLA in the city. “The population in Raipur increased three-fold since its formation, but its infrastructure, especially sewage and drainage, are in a shambles, and the BJP has done nothing to upgrade