The BJP is set to form the government in Goa for the third consecutive time, winning 20 of the total 40 seats in the Assembly on Thursday. With its former ally, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (two seats), which was in a pre-poll alliance with the Trinamool Congress (TMC), extending support to the BJP after the results were announced, and three Independent candidates also backing it, the BJP was well over the halfway mark.
The TMC drew a blank, while the AAP made an entry into the Goa Assembly with two seats. The youth-driven Revolutionary Goans also won a seat. The Congress won 11 seats, while ally Goa Forward Party (GFP) got just one seat.
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While the BJP had won 13 seats in 2017, its strength in the House went up to 27 after the defections in 2019. The Congress had won 17, but its numbers were down to 5 in the outgoing House.
“We had said this before and we are saying this again, that even if we get full majority, we will take some people with us. The MGP has given us a letter of support. Two of their MLAs and three Independents will be with us. Some others may also join us, the BJP will form the government with a comfortable majority,” said the party’s Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant seemed set to return to the top post, pulling off a win under his leadership that party leaders said was better than expected. “In the last three years, the party gave me the opportunity to lead. In this period, many schemes of the Centre and the state were implemented, and I was also given the opportunity to lead the election. We won 20 seats without an alliance. I thank the people of Goa and our central and state leaders. Our central observers of the parliamentary board are expected to arrive tomorrow, after which we will stake claim to form the government,” Sawant told mediapersons on Thursday.
P Chidambaram, the Congress’s special election observer for Goa, said: “We accept the verdict of the people of Goa… In several constituencies, we have lost by very small margins. The winning party, the BJP, got only 33 per cent of the votes. The overwhelming majority voted against the BJP, but their votes were split among many parties, which gave the BJP the opportunity to win 20 seats”.
He said the Congress had conveyed that people who wanted a change should vote for the party and not let their votes get divided. “We accept that the message was not communicated as effectively as it should have been. They voted largely for the Congress, but also for other parties, especially the new entrants in Goa. As a result, the non-BJP votes were divided,” he said.
In the run-up to the polls, GFP leader Vijai Sardesai and the TMC had given calls for a united Opposition, but the Congress and AAP were unenthused. On Thursday, Chidambaram said: “Certainly, it would have been better if a non-BJP front had been forged… There were several difficulties in forging a non-BJP front.”
The MGP, which won three seats in 2017, won two this time; the GFP, which had also won three in 2017, won only in Fatorda, the seat of its president Vijai Sardesai.
Both the deputy chief ministers in the outgoing government lost their seats. Manohar Ajgaonkar, who moved from the MGP to the BJP in 2019, lost to Congress’s Digambar Kamat in Margao; Chandrakant Kavlekar, who moved to the BJP from the Congress in 2019, lost his Quepem seat.
Former CM and political heavyweight Churchill Alemao, who was among the TMC’s “winnable” candidates, lost to the AAP’s Venzy Viegas in Benaulim. He had won from Benaulim on an NCP ticket in 2017.
BJP’s Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate won in the closely-watched Panaji seat by 716 votes. Utpal Parrikar, son of late Defence Minister and former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar, who contested as an Independent after the BJP chose Monserrate over him, finished second. “I am happy about Monserrate’s win but I cannot be happy about Utpal’s defeat. He is a part of our family. We will see what to do in the future. All I can say is that if he had stayed with us, he would be an MLA today,” Fadnavis said.
Another significant win for the BJP was in Poriem, a seat that the Congress has held for 45 years. Former Goa CM Pratap Singh Rane’s exit from the poll fray cost the Congress as Rane’s daughter-in-law, Deviya Rane, made her political debut, winning the seat for the BJP with the highest victory margin of 13,943.
Among the three Independent candidates who backed the BJP was Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, who was earlier elected from Curtorim constituency thrice on a Congress ticket. The Congress refused him re-entry after his misadventure with the TMC, so he contested as an Independent. The other two Independents are: Chandrakant Shetye (Bicholim) and Antonio Dias (Cortalim).
The Revolutionary Goans, which contested its first election, won the St Andre seat, where the party’s Viresh Borkar defeated BJP’s Francisco Silveira by 76 votes. The party is led by Tukaram alias Manoj Parab, a youth leader who started with a political outfit of young Goans (25-35 years age group), mostly from the Bahujan Samaj. The party had projected the interest of Goans over non-Goans, playing the insider-outsider card.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant (Express photo by Mayura Janwalkar) 
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