Congress candidate Fransisco Sardinha won in the South Goa Lok Sabha seat defeating his nearest rival Narendra Sawaikar of BJP.
The south Goa constituency witnessed a close contest between both the national parties but finally Sardinha walked away with the victory of 12,516 votes.
Sardinha, sitting MP, had tough time even in the Congress strong hold of Salcette constituency where he managed to get slender margin.
Except for two constituencies of Nuvem and Velim in Salcette, he could not manage to get the whopping lead, which the Congress was expecting. But these two constituencies gave him much needed lead helping him to wade through crisis.
The BJP candidate managed to get lead in their traditional stronghold of Sanvordem, Sanguem, Canacona, Mormugao and Vasco constituencies but could not fair well in other.
The Congress infighting, especially the rebellion by Congress minister Churchill Alemao, was strongly visible in this election. Navelim constituency, a Congress stronghold, represented by Alemao in the state legislative Assembly, gave Sardinha lead of just five votes.
Reacting to the victory immediately after the elections, Chief Minister Digamber Kamat said that he is very happy that people of South Goa fully supported the Congress.
"This is the victory of Congress party policies and this indicates that the people were always supportive of having UPA government in the Centre," Kamat told PTI.
BJPs lost candidate Narendra Sawaikar said that although the party has lost it is a moral victory for them as they managed to slash the Congress victory margin from 50,000 in last election to mere 12,000-odd.
