The Congress has emerged as the single largest party with 17 seats in the fractured mandate thrown up by the Goan electorate, while the BJP has emerged second with 13 seats in the 40 member Goa Legislative Assembly.

With this performance,  the Congress has nearly doubled its tally of seats won in the 2012 Assembly elections, when it won only nine out of the 40 Assembly seats, while the BJP dropped eight seats from its tally of 21 in 2012.

With a hung Assembly, the role of other smaller parties like the Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party which won three seats each, the Nationalist Congress Party which won one seat and three victorious Independent candidates becomes crucial, vis a vis formation of a government.

While the Congress needs four MLAs to obtain a simple majority, the BJP needs eight seats to emerge as the bigger formation.

Leaders of the MGP and the Goa Forward have so far remained non-committal as far supporting either the Congress or the BJP are concerned.

The Aam Aadmi Party as well as the Goa Suraksha Manch failed to open their account this time round.

 Both parties have expressed confidence of forming a government in Goa, with All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijaya Singh stating that his party expects to submit a list of MLAs to the Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday afternoon.

“We will stake our claim with the governor as soon as election of Congress Legislature Party leader is over and we hope to submit our list tomorrow sometime in the afternoon to the governor,” Singh told DH.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar also said that the BJP would work towards forming a government with the help of smaller parties.