PANAJI
The counting of votes for the Ponda constituency added to the drama quotient of Thursday's counting process as it turned out to be the only one of the 40 to be put through an official recount.
Former chief minister Ravi Naik of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who was trailing in third position until the last round of counting when he suddenly turned the tables and won by a narrow margin of 77 votes.
A formal request for recounting from the trailing candidate Ketan Bhatikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) was accepted by the Returning Officer but the recount saw no change in the ultimate result.
Sources close to Bhatikar said, according to the calculations of his counting agents' team, he was leading by a solitary vote at the end of counting but the official tally showed Naik as the winner which was the reason why he sought the recount.
Naik meanwhile said, he gained the lead when the last the last three EVM machines were taken up for counting.
"My lead got reduced as some of my supporters got confused which symbol to vote for since he had shifted on the eve of the election from Congress to BJP,” he claimed. This is the first time that BJP has won the Ponda seat.
