Goa Elections: Cong's Digambar Kamat Wins Margao, Michael Lobo Bags Calangute

Afraid of last-minute defections, Congress had asked its Goa candidates to stay in a hotel until 10 March.

As counting for the Assembly elections in Goa is underway, Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in Goa, Congress' Digambar Kamat won from Margao constituency with a margin of 7,794 votes.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has won 14 out of the total 40 seats in Goa and is leading in six. INC has won five and is also leading in six.

Kamat was contesting against Goa’s Deputy Chief Minister Babu Ajgaonkar Manohar and Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) Lincoln Anthony Vaz.

Kamat, a seven-time MLA, was the chief minister of the state from 2007 to 2012 and was succeeded by BJP's Manohar Parrikar in 2017.

Kamat had retained the Margao constituency seat and continued until 2019 as an elected legislative member of the constituency.

Meanwhile, Michael Lobo, the Congress candidate, won from the Calangute seat. Lobo, who won by 4,979 votes, was up against against BJP's Joseph Robert Sequeira and AAP's Sudesh Suresh Mathias.

Lobo, who held the portfolios of port and waste management under BJP leader and state Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, had quit the party after his wife Delilah Lobo was denied a ticket by the party.

"We had thought that we will win but we have to accept the people's mandate. We have got 12 seats, BJP has got 18 seats. We will work strongly as the Opposition. Congress will have to work hard to win the confidence of the people," he told ANI.

Congress Ready for Post-poll Alliance

While Congress MLAs have been sent to a resort to avoid poaching efforts by other parties, the party has hinted that it is ready to form an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Speaking to The Indian Express, AICC Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao on Wednesday said, "Whichever party is against the BJP, we will talk with them and we are ready to take them on board. I am not talking about any particular party now. Any party that does not want to support the BJP, we are willing to accommodate them."

Goa Congress President Girish Chodankar had earlier said that they will win the elections with 23-26 seats.

“The magic figure has been decided by the people of Goa. It will come out in the open soon. We are confident that we will win between 23 and 26 seats," he said.

In the 40-member House, though the Congress had emerged as the single largest party in 2017, winning 17 seats, the BJP, which had won 13 seats, managed to form the government with the support of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which had won three seats each, besides two independents.