Kakinada, Feb 9^th: The East and West Godavari Teacher MLC seat was won by Jacto and Congress supported candidate, Mr. Chaitanya Raju against the UFT president Mr. Subhash Chandra Bose over a margin of 313 votes. Out of the total valid votes of 11,449, Mr. Raju acquired 5,560 as first preference votes while Mr. Bose acquired 5,222 votes. For the election conducted on February 6^th the counting process took place at JNTU on Monday. The counting started in the morning at 8am and continued till 2pm. The whole counting process took place under tight security arranged at the JNTU University.

As per the norms, for a win the contestant should get 50 per cent and one vote of the total valid votes. Falling short of requirement vote strength of 5, 725, the election returning officer and East Godavari district collector Mr. Gopala Krishna Dwivedi has opted for the second preferential vote process. In this process Mr. Raju got 144 second preferential votes which took his total to 5,805. Mr. Bose got 164 second preferential votes and took his total to 5, 482. Finally collector declared Mr. Raju as the MLC for the next coming 2 academic years. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Raju has thanked all the teachers for electing him as MLC and promised them to do his best.