GA-ASSEMBLY-LD RESULT

Goa: BJP loses Assembly seat held by Parrikar to Congress
    (Eds: Updates with results of all 4 Assembly bypolls)
    Panaji, May 23 (PTI) The BJP, which held the Panaji
Assembly seat in Goa for 25 years, lost it on Thursday to the
Congress, but won bypolls in Shiroda, Mapusa and Mandrem
Assembly constituencies.
    The Panaji Assembly bypoll was necessitated due to the
death of sitting MLA and former chief minister Manohar
Parrikar in March, while the death of sitting BJP MLA Francis
D'Souza necessitated the bypoll in Mapusa.
    The bypolls in Shiroda and Mandrem became necessary
following the resignation of their sitting Congress MLAs.
    In Panaji, Congress nominee Atanasio Monserratte got
8,748 votes while BJP's Siddharth Kunkolienkar polled 6,990
votes, an official said.
    The Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM) candidate and former Goa
RSS chief Subhash Velingkar came in at the third spot, getting
just 560 votes while AAP's nominee Valmiki Naik came in fourth
with 436 votes.
    In the 2017 Assembly poll, Kunkolienkar had defeated
Monserratte by around 1,600 votes.
    The BJP, under Parrikar, ruled the constituency for
25 years since 1994.
    After the final result came out, Kunkolienkar said he
accepted the people's verdict and apologised to the BJP
workers for failing to retain the seat.
    However, Monserratte took a dig at the BJP, saying the
party was "helpless" in Parrikar's absence.
    In Mapusa, late Francis D'Souza's son Joshua D'Souza
of the BJP defeated his Congress rival Sudhir Kandolkar by a
margin of 1,151 votes.
    The BJP nominee, who polled 11,167 votes against
Kandolkar's 10,016 votes, later told reporters that he would
carry forward his father's legacy and work for the people and
the party.
    In Shiroda, BJP candidate Subhash Shirodkar wrested
the seat from the Congress by defeating his nearest rival
Deepak Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party by
just 66 votes, an election official said.
    Shirodkar, who was earlier elected from the seat in
the 2017 state polls on Congress' ticket, resigned in October
last year and joined the BJP, due to which the by-election was
necessitated. He polled 10,661 votes while Dhavalikar got
10,585 votes.
    Dhavalikar refused to seek recounting of votes though
Shirodkar won by a slim margin, the official said.
    Congress' Mahadev Naik came in at the third position
by getting 2,402 votes while GSM candidate Santosh Satarkar
and AAP nominee Yogesh Khandeparkar polled 284 and 231 votes,
respectively.
    In Mandrem, BJP candidate Dayanand Sopte, who also
joined the saffron party after resigning from the Congress,
won the seat by a margin of 3,943 votes.
    Sopte polled 13,168 votes while his nearest
Independent rival Jeet Arolkar got 9,225 votes.
    The Congress nominee Babi Baghkar secured 4,221 votes
whle GSM's Swaroop Naik managed to get 615 votes.
    Before the bypolls, former chief minister and senior
BJP leader Laxmikant Parsekar had expressed his unhappiness
over Sopte's induction into the party. PTI RPS GK VT
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