Panaji: Exhibiting confidence before the counting of votes began in Goa, the Congress requested a meeting with Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai at 3 pm today. Though no such appointment has been approved so far, the party sources have confirmed that they are confident of a win in Goa and are 'learning from mistakes made in the 2017 election', which is why the party has asked for an appointment in advance.
In the 2017 elections, despite securing lesser wins as compared to Congress, the BJP bagged the victory with support from the smaller parties like Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) as well as the independent MLAs. Congress, on the other hand, emerged as the party with maximum seats but failed to form the government as it ran short of enough alliances.
P Chidambaram and DK Shivkumar, the leading Congress firefighters from the High Command, had been sent to the state early, seemingly to work on the possible alliances and monitor the necessary decisions. Since the exit polls predicted a hung assembly in Goa, the party has been worried about losing its MLAs and had also therefore moved all of them to a resort in Goa earlier.
The exit polls had predicted 16 seats each for BJP and Congress, with both parties short of 5 seats to reach the winning mark in the 40 member assembly.
Also read: Goa Polls: Laxmikant Parsekar, Utpal Parrikar lead in counting of postal ballots
