Goa's newly elected assembly, without a majority
What happened
Goa's regional party won the most seats in this assembly election, but not enough to govern alone.
The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak won 15 of 30 seats.
That left it short of the 16-seat majority mark — a hung house, a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
The Indian National Congress came second, with 10 seats.
What changed
This is the earliest assembly election in this project's records for the territory.
What stands out instead is how divided the result was — 4 different parties won seats, plus 2 independents.
On average, 4.8 candidates contested each seat.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election are worth knowing on their own.
The tightest finish was in Daman, Goa, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 22 votes.
Marcaim, Goa had the widest margin of the night, winning by 37.4% of the vote — measured as a share of the vote rather than in votes.
Bicholim, Goa posted the best turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — of any seat, at 71.9%.
Daman, Goa was also the territory's biggest electorate, with 20,640 registered voters, and drew the most candidates of any seat, 8 in all.
The backdrop
A decade before this election, the territory had settled a bigger question about its own future.
On 16 January 1967, Goa held the Opinion Poll, a referendum offered as an alternative to merging with Maharashtra. Voters chose to remain a separate union territory by roughly 172,000 to 138,000 votes, defeating the merger position associated with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party. Goa continued as a union territory until statehood in 1987.
The side that lost that vote, the MAG, still won the most seats here.