Mid-way through counting, AAP fails to win a single seat in Goa

Panaji: The Aam Aadmi Party, which ran a high-profile election campaign in Goa, has not been able to secure a victory in the state assembly polls here yet.

Conceding defeat, party spokesperson Rupesh Shinkre said that the party needed to work on ground to convince Goan voters next time round.

"We will have to introspect. We have to start work on ground to earn the trust of the people," Shinkre said.

Even the Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial candidate Elvis Gomes came fourth in the contest for South Goa's Cuncolim assembly seat, losing by a margin of 2,874 votes to the winning candidate Cleofas Dias from the Congress.

Barring the Benalium constituency in South Goa, where AAP's Royla Fernandes emerged second, losing to Nationalist Congress Party's Churchill Alemao by a margin of 5,191 seats, the party has not been able to corner a first runner-up position in any of the 20 seats whose results have been declared till around 2 p.m.

Speaking to reporters, Gomes said, that peoples' will needed to be respected and that the party did not have much time to prepare for the February 4 assembly polls.

"We are a new party and we had to get ready in shortest possible time. But I am happy that AAP has registered itself on the minds of the voters in Goa," Gomes said.

Commenting on the lacklustre performance of the AAP in Goa, Gomes said: "We have to respect the peoples' will. Fact remains, that AAP has made an impact on Goa and we will continue to work."

The AAP's election campaign was one of the most high-profile campaigns in the run-up to the state assembly elections. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, as well as several other cabinet ministers from the Delhi cabinet had campaigned for the AAP in Goa, which had started its poll preparations as way back as May 28.

After announcing the party's intentions of contesting the state assembly polls in Goa, Kejriwal had claimed that AAP would win 35 out of the 40 assembly seats, but during the course of the campaign the AAP watered down its claim to 26-28 seats.