It was a comfortable win for the Congress in the Lok Sabha byelection in South Goa with former chief minister Francisco Sardinha defeating BJP’s Wilfred Mesquita by a margin of over 40,000 votes. Less than 35 per cent of voters had turned out for the Wednesday poll.  The BJP had put up a minority candidate for the first time in a parliamentary election in Goa, but the experiment failed to connect with voters in the Catholic-dominated areas of South Goa like Salcete, which gave the Congress a huge lead.

The bypoll victory is expected to give Chief Minister Digambar Kamat some breathing space to kickstart governance in real earnest. Mr Kamat’s detractors within and outside the Congress had adopted a wait-and-watch approach before making their next move.

With the election out of the way, the Congress could adopt a tougher approach with Churchill Alemao whose Save Goa Front forms part of the coalition government. A group within the Congress is lobbying to bring the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party on board to keep Mr Alemao in check.

The Congress last month moved to withdraw the disqualification petitions against MGP MLAs Ramkrisha and Deepak Dhavlikar pending before Speaker Pratapsingh Rane. The Supreme Court had also given the Speaker three weeks to take a view on the petition.

SP wins Lanjhi
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party candidate Kishore Samrite on Saturday wrested the Lanjhi Assembly seat in Balaghat district of Madhya  Pradesh from the BJP by a margin of 3,734 votes. This is BJP’s first electoral defeat in Madhya Pradesh since coming to power in the state four years ago.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MLA Dilip Bhatere, whose wife was fielded as the candidate.