New Delhi, June 5: The Congress has got a bit of a leg-up from Goa after routs in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine emerged the single-largest group by picking up 19 seats in the 40-member Goa Assembly.

With a little help from Independents and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, the Congress seems set to retain its government in the state.

Among the Independents proffering support was Vishwajit, the son of outgoing chief minister Pratapsinh Rane. Vishwajit was miffed with the Congress for denying him a ticket.

Rane senior tonight submitted his resignation to govenor S.C. Jamir who asked him to continue till a new government is in place. Party sources in Delhi said he was almost certain to get a second innings in office.

The BJP won 14 seats and the other parties and Independents bagged seven. The Save Goa Front floated by rebel Congress MP Churchill Alemao won two seats.

“It is a vote for secularism, stability and good governance,” said Congress secretary Mabel Rebello, who assisted Margaret Alva, the party’s in-charge for the polls.

For Alva, the victory was a boost because she had a bad spell recently when the Congress lost some prestigious seats in the Maharashtra civic polls as well as two Lok Sabha byelections.

Prominent among the winners were Rane and former BJP chief minister Manohar Parrikar. The losers included the deputy chief minister and NCP state chief Wilfred D’Souza and Francisco Sardinha, the Speaker of the outgoing Assembly.

There was more good news for the Congress. By bagging two bypoll seats in Manipur, it acquired a simple majority. In Madhya Pradesh, the party wrested the Shivpuri Assembly seat from the BJP.

However, it lost the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh to the BJP’s Prem Singh Dhumal.