North Goa stays with BJP, Congress wins South

MARGAO: BJP succeeded in defending its North Goa parliamentary seat as Shripad Naik romped to victory with a massive margin. He defeated Congress candidate Girish Chodankar, who is also the state Congress president.
In South Goa, however, BJP failed to retain its seat as Narendra Sawaikar lost to Congress candidate Francisco Sardinha by less than 10,000 votes.

With his latest victory, the 67-year-old Naik has achieved the feat of winning the North Goa seat for the fifth consecutive term.He overcame the anti-incumbency sentiment largely owing to his ‘nice man’ and unsullied image as a politician.
In South Goa, the Catholic-dominated Salcete taluka once again jinxed BJP’s fortunes, with Congress securing leads in all its eight assembly segments. Despite AAP breaching the 20,000-vote threshold, the split in ‘secular votes’ failed to provide any advantage to BJP.