Akbar wins by 3,000 votes

HYDERABAD: For MIM candidate Akbaruddin Owaisi''s supporters, victory announcements came as a great relief as the contest was a close one in the Chandrayagutta Assembly constituency.
MIM''s victory in the constituency could not be taken for granted as the MBT candidate Khayam Khan was just a few votes behind. Until the counting was over for half the rounds, MIM was leading with only 3,000-odd votes.
The slight difference got MIM workers tense and were keen to know as to which of the booths were yet to take up counting.While MBT is strong in some areas of Chandrayangutta, the MIM has an assured support and vote bank.
Akbaruddin Owaisi entered the counting centre at Nizam College after half of the rounds were done with. There were frequent fluctuations in the trends. Except after towards the end of counting of some rounds, the MIM candidate''s lead leaped far ahead.
MIM workers and Owaisi junior were under pressure due to delay in declaring the result. The delay happened because two EVMs having a total votes of 1,500-plus were showing an error. But the end result favoured Owaisi by a lead win of 11,943 votes.
The returning officer declared the result after consulting the election commission. In 1999 election, Akbar''s margin was about 11,920 and this time he added only 23 more votes to his margin. "I was confident of the win. I was bothered only about improving my margin," he said.