AAP fails to win a SINGLE seat in Goa

Conceding defeat, party spokesperson Rupesh Shinkre said that the party needed to work on ground to convince Goan voters next time round.

Panaji, March 11: The Aam Aadmi Party which ran a searing campaign in Goa, has not been able to secure a single seat in the assembly elections yet.

The AAP's chief ministerial candidate came fourth in the contest for Cuncolim in south Goa, losing by a margin by 2,964 votes to Clafasio Dias of the Indian National Congress.
Conceding defeat, party spokesperson Rupesh Shinkre said that the party needed to work on ground to convince Goan voters next time round.

"We will have to introspect. We have to start work on ground to earn the trust of the people," Shinkre said.

The AAP's election campaign was one of the most high-profile campaigns in the run-up to the state assembly elections. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, as well as several other cabinet ministers from the Delhi cabinethad campaigned for the AAP in Goa, which had started its poll preparations as way back as May 28.

Barring the Benalium constituency in South Goa, where AAP's Royla Fernandes emerged second, losing to Nationalist Congress Party's Churchill Alemao by a margin of 5,191 seats, the party has not been able to corner a first runner-up position in any of the 20 seats whose results have been declared till around 2 p.m.

Speaking to reporters, Gomes said, that peoples' will needed to be respected and that the party did not have much time to prepare for the February 4 assembly polls.

After announcing the party's intentions of contesting the state assembly polls in Goa, Kejriwal had claimed that AAP would win 35 out of the 40 assembly seats, but during the course of the campaign the AAP watered down its claim to 26-28 seats.

Interestingly, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had challenged the AAP, and had claimed that the party would score a zero in the 2017 elections. Parsekar himself lost to Congress candidate Dayanand Raghunath by 3,500 votes from the Manderam constituency.

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