“On battleground we have to go united,” claimed senior party functionary Luizinho Faleiro at a press conference at Panjim, before the state went to polls. Digambar Kamat, former chief minister of Goa also accompanied him along with other senior congress leaders. Today this statement has far more meaning and relevance than when it was said by a tentative Congress Party, mired by in-fighting and corruption allegations.
Although Goa is headed for a hung assembly with Congress getting 17 of the 40 seats requiring support for at least four seats to form the government, it is a major comeback for Congress party, where people – disillusioned with BJP - chose to go back to the “known devil” over the Aam Aadmi Party. Independents have won three, Goa Forward Party has won three and Nationalist Congress Party has won a single seat – all of whom could lend support to the Congress – if they were to stake claim. Of the new entrants, neither AAP, floated as an alternative to Congress and the BJP, nor Velingkar's Goa Suraksha Manch made any impact.