Most seats, not the most votes
What happened
Goa's assembly election again ended without a clear majority for any single party.
The Indian National Congress won the most seats, 17 of 40, in a hung result — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
The Bharatiya Janata Party followed with 13.
What changed
The seats that changed hands scattered widely, but more went to the party that ended up in front than to any other.
6 constituencies that had backed the BJP last time went to the INC instead.
A new party also won seats in the assembly for the first time.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
The BJP actually won a bigger vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate — than the INC, 32.5% against 28.4%, even while finishing behind in seats.
The tightest finish: Cuncolim, Goa was decided by just 33 votes — the narrowest margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second, anywhere in the state that year.
At the other extreme, Marcaim, Goa was won by a margin of 58.6% of the vote — the widest margin of the year, measured as a share of the vote rather than in votes.
About 1.2% of all votes went to NOTA — 'None of the Above,' a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer.
The backdrop
By this point, Goa had been electing its own state assembly for many years.
On 30 May 1987, the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, 1987 split the union territory of Goa, Daman and Diu: Goa became India's 25th state with its own Legislative Assembly, while Daman and Diu remained a separate union territory. The next general election, in 1989, was Goa's first as a full state.