Panaji (Goa) [India], Mar. 11 : The Congress has finished with 17 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has bagged 13 in the Goa Assembly polls.
Regional outfits like Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) have won three seats each. While the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has emerged victorious with one seat and the independent candidates won three constituencies.
Meanwhile, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar submitted his resignation. The Governor asked Parsekar to continue till a new government is formed, but, Parsekar said it is a fractured mandate.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which entered the fray with much fanfare, failed to make any impact. The counting of votes for the 40 seats in Goa Assembly elections started at 8 a.m. this morning. The Election Commission (EC) had set up two counting centres in North and South Goa to declare the winners in 40 seats.
The Congress, the BJP and the AAP ran the most high-octane campaigns, along with regional parties like Goa Forward and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which contested in alliance with the Shiv Sena and the Goa Suraksha Manch, mentored by former state RSS chief Subhash Velingkar.
For the 40 assembly seats, the BJP had fielded candidates in 36, the AAP in 39, the Congress in 37, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) in 25 and the NCP also in 37 seats.
In the four-cornered contest, Goa witnessed 83 percent voting, which equalled the polling percentage of 2012.
As per Election Commission officials, a majority of the 15,590 postal ballots had been accounted for. The February 4 election also saw Goa earn the credential of being the first state in the country to fully implement the electronically transmitted postal ballot system and the VVPAT technology that allowed voters to verify whether or not they have voted correctly.
Source: ANI
