Parrikar wins Panaji; AAP, TDP retain seats in bypoll

New Delhi/Hyderabad, Aug 29
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was today elected to the Legislative Assembly from Panaji as ruling parties retained all four seats in Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi where byelections were held on August 23.
Parrikar, who returned to state politics in March after a stint as the Defence Minister, defeated his nearest Congress rival Girish Chodankar, considered close to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, by 4,803 votes.
Parrikar, who had been winning the seat since 1994, resigned in November 2014 to join the Union Cabinet. BJP leader Sidharth Kuncolienkar, who won the subsequent bypoll from Panaji and retained the seat in the 2017 elections, had stepped down to make way for Parrikar.
BJP’s Vishwajit Rane, who had quit the Congress soon after the Assembly elections, retained the Valpoi seat, defeating his nearest Congress rival Roy Naik by 10,066 votes, taking the saffron party’s tally in the 40-member House to 14. With 16 MLAs, the Congress is still the single largest party, while the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) have three MLAs each, NCP one, and Independents three. The BJP-led ruling coalition comprises the GFP, MGP and the three Independents.
After a string of electoral reverses in Punjab and Goa, Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party redeemed itself with a win in the Bawana constituency where its candidate Ram Chander trounced BJP’s Ved Prakash, an AAP turncoat, by over 24,000 votes. Three-time former MLA Surendra Kumar of Congress finished third.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party retained the Nandyal seat in the Rayalaseema region by registered a win by 27,466 votes over the YSR Congress Party in a bitterly fought political battle. While TDP candidate Bhuma Brahmanand Reddy polled 97,076 votes, his YSRCP rival Silpa Mohan Reddy got 69,610.