Lagatar24 Desk
Panaji, Mar 10: Both Deputy Chief Ministers of Goa lost the Assembly elections to their closest Congress challengers on Thursday, despite the fact that their party, the BJP, is on track to become the state’s single largest political organisation.
In the Margao Assembly constituency, Deputy Chief Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar was beaten by Leader of the Opposition and Congress candidate Digambar Kamat by about 6,000 votes.
The BJP fielded Ajgaonkar from Margao in South Goa, where he had previously been elected from Pernem in North Goa.
Since 1994, Kamat, a former chief minister, has represented Margao in the Assembly.
Chandrakant Kavlekar, the second Deputy Chief Minister in the Pramod Sawant-led cabinet, was defeated in Quepem by Congress candidate Altone D’Costa.
In 2017, Kavlekar was elected from Quepem on a Congress ticket. In 2019, he and nine other Congress MLAs defected to the BJP, and he was rewarded with the position of Deputy Chief Minister.
D’Costa, who was running for the first time in the constituency, defeated Kavlekar by more than 3,000 votes.
The 40-member Goa Assembly was elected on February 14, and the votes were counted today, March 10.
