Kolkata: Senior Goa Congress leader and two-term chief minister Luizinho Faleiro is likely to join Trinamool Congress (TMC), in what could be a major jolt to the Congress ahead of next year’s assembly elections in the state.
According to TMC sources, the party has had talks with Faleiro and he could become the Trinamool face in Goa, as the Mamata Banerjee-led unit seeks to expand its base outside West Bengal and test the political waters in Goa.
Faleiro is a seven-term Congress MLA from Navelim constituency in south Goa. In 2018, he was named a Congress general secretary, and in-charge of seven north-eastern states.
ThePrint reached Faleiro for a comment via calls but there was no response until the time of publishing this report.
A senior Goa Congress leader said on condition of anonymity that it appears that Faleiro is joining the TMC. However, Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar clarified that Faleiro “has not officially conveyed anything” to the party yet.
Currently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is ruling the state. In the 2017 assembly elections, the Congress could not form the government in Goa despite winning 17 of the 40 assembly seats. The BJP with 13 seats managed to ally with regional parties and came to power amid allegations of horse-trading. Senior BJP leader and then defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who died in 2020, became the CM.
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TMC’s expansion bid
The TMC is looking to enter the political fray in Goa, the third state after Tripura and Assam where the party is seeking to expand.
Two senior TMC leaders, Lok Sabha MP Prasun Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, are currently in Goa, meeting senior leaders from non-BJP parties to explore possible tie-ups ahead of next year’s polls, said TMC sources.
Before the two leaders arrived in the state, a team from political strategist Prashant Kishore’s India Political Action Committee (I-PAC), which is engaged by the TMC, had stationed itself in Goa to assess the political situation on the ground.
The party started exploring the possibilities in Goa based on the I-PAC feedback.
Over the past week, while campaigning for the bypoll in Kolkata’s Bhabanipur, from where she is contesting, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee repeatedly said that her party is ready to go national. She mentioned the upcoming polls in Tripura, Assam, Goa and Uttar Pradesh in this context.
“We will fight in different parts of India. Tripure me khela hobe, Assam me khela hobe, Goa me khela hobe, UP me khela hobe…” Banerjee said in Bhabanipur’s Ekbalpore area on 22 September, referring to her winning slogan ‘khela hobe‘ from earlier this year.
Banerjee has made no secret of the fact that the TMC is eyeing expansion beyond Bengal, following her party’s resounding victory in the state for a third term in a row earlier this year.
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