What key Goa wins mean for Congress-AAP alliance: LS seat to Benaulim zilla panchayat

Three weeks after its victory in the Lok Sabha elections in the South Goa constituency, one of the two Goa seats, the INDIA alliance comprising the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now clinched a crucial zilla panchayat bypoll in the state.

AAP candidate Joseph Pimenta won the Benaulim zilla panchayat bypoll in South Goa, polling 5672 votes – 54.06 percent of total votes – defeating three Independent candidates including Congress “rebel” Royla Fernandes. Though the ruling BJP did not field a candidate in this bypoll, the INDIA bloc leaders accused it of “tacitly supporting” the Independents, especially the Congress rebel.

The bypoll for the OBC-reserved zilla panchayat seat was held after its AAP incumbent Hanzel Fernandes was disqualified over his false caste certificate.

Being the first election in Goa after the Lok Sabha polls, the Benaulim zilla panchayat seat bypoll assumed significance for the INDIA alliance in terms of its future prospects too.

In the Lok Sabha polls, only the Congress fielded its candidates in both the seats, where the AAP threw its weight behind them. The Congress bagged the South Goa seat, but lost North Goa to the BJP.

In the 2022 state Assembly polls however, both the parties had fought separately, with the incumbent BJP returning to power after winning 20 seats out of 40, with the Congress getting 11. Later, 8 Congress MLAs defected to the BJP, leaving just 3 legislators with the grand old party now.

Making its first foray into the Goa Assembly polls in 2017, the AAP had drawn a blank. Significantly, the party achieved its first electoral victory in the state by winning the Benaulim zila panchayat seat in 2020.

The 2022 state polls saw the AAP expanding its footprint and winning two