Goa and Manipur ended up with hung assemblies yesterday.
But both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed they will form the new government in the coastal state of Goa.
While the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the 40-member house winning 17 seats, the BJP was second with 13 seats.
In Manipur, the ruling Congress finished as the single-largest party, but three short of a majority in a hung, with the BJP, for the first time, emerging the second largest outfit in the northeastern state where smaller parties and an independent lawmaker now held the key to government formation.
A Congress spokesperson in Panaji said the party would soon stake claim to form the government in Goa while Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that the BJP was already in talks with regional parties and Independents to return to power.
“A lot of like-minded people have been elected, including my friend Vijai (Sardesai of Goa Forward). Let the party leadership decide. Of course we will form the government,” newly-elected Congress legislator from Valpoi, Vishwajeet Rane said in Panaji.
Parrikar told a press conference late yesterday that some smaller parties who were keen on siding with the BJP and not the Congress were in contact.
“Many of them have expressed clearly that they want to be associated with BJP and not with Congress,” he said. Asked if he was in touch with these parties, he said: “Obviously”.
While the Congress and BJP have accounted for a bulk of the votes, Goa Forward and the Maharastrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), both regional parties, have won three seats, while three Independents were also elected.
Their role would be crucial as far as government formation is concerned.
In Manipur, with all results of the 60-member house declared, the Congress clinched 28 seats, seven more than the BJP, after a day-long see-saw battle for the top position between the two outfits.
The BJP, which had drawn a blank in the previous assembly polls five years back, came up with its best-ever tally of 21 seats in the northeastern state, to continue its inroads into a region where it lacked strength for decades. Only last year, the BJP had secured an absolute majority for the first time in neighbouring Assam and runs the government.
But to form the government, both the Congress — which has been in power for 15 years at a stretch with Okram Ibobi Singh as chief minister — and the BJP would have to draw support from some smaller parties, who bagged 11 seats.
Ibobi, who spearheaded the Congress campaign in the run-up to the elections, also led its winners’ list by retaining the prestigious Thoubal seat defeating rights activist and People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance party nominee Irom Sharmila, who got fewer than 100 votes.