By IANS
Panaji : The Congress was set to retain power in Goa with its ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after winning 19 seats in a fractured verdict and promptly securing more support to gain a majority in the 40-member assembly.
After being locked in a neck and neck race for power at one time during vote count, a disappointed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finished with just 14 seats, giving it no chance to cobble a workable coalition.
Smaller parties and independents claimed seven crucial seats, and at least four of them indicated that they were willing to back a Congress-NCP government in the former Portuguese colony.
Among the other parties that made it to the assembly were the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Save Goa Front and United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP).
Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane's son Vishwajit, who won as an independent candidate, announced that he would support the Congress, effectively taking the Congress-NCP tally to 20, just one short of a clear majority.
Congress sources said the one seat required for majority could come from MGP, which won two seats and was part of outgoing Rane government, or from another independent Anil Salgaonkar, who won from Sanvordem seat.
The Goa victory has come as a morale booster for the Congress, which in recent months has lost control of Punjab and Uttarakhand and was mauled in Uttar Pradesh.
Chief Minister Rane won from Poriem while former BJP chief minister Manohar Parrikar bagged the Panaji seat.
The verdict showed that Goa's minority Catholic vote might have shifted to the small anti-Congress parties and independents.
But the results were very much a repetition of elections of 1999 and 2002 when too the battle of ballot threw up fractured legislatures.
BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who until Tuesday afternoon was hopeful of his party emerging as the single largest group in the assembly, conceded defeat. "We did not perform as we expected," he said.
The Congress said its legislators would meet soon to discuss "the future strategy" in detail.
On Tuesday, both the Congress and BJP saw some of their stalwarts lose but they retained a few of their strongholds.
Save Goa Front candidate Alexo Louraco defeated Speaker Fransisco Sardinha in Curtorim.
The Front is a brainchild of former chief minister Churchill Alemao, a Congress MP who quit the Lok Sabha and formed the group ahead of the state elections.
Among the star losers are three time chief minister Wilfred de Souza (NCP), six-term legislator Luizinho Faleiro, senior leader Jitendra Deshprabhu and former state ministers Harish Zantye, Subhash Shirodkar and Sanjay Bandekar.
Former BJP minister Ramrao Desai lost in Curchorem.
Congress' Digambar Kamat won from Margao. Ravi Naik, who too returned to Congress after serving as deputy chief minister in the BJP government, retained his Ponda seat.
Congress' Aleixo Sequeira won in Loutolim, Goa's only Catholic minority constituency in the coastal south.
But former central minister Ramakant Khalap, who joined the Congress after leaving the regional MGP, lost in North Goa to BJP.