Navelim MLA and former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro is set to join the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) party on Monday. The Mamata Banerjee-led party has expressed its ‘seriousness’ about contesting legislative Assembly polls in Goa, scheduled for early 2022.
Calling Mamata a “street-fighterâ€, the Congress veteran stated, “Goa is going through difficult times and it needs such fighters, which are also in the same wavelength, same party ideology, policies, principles and programs. I am a Congressman, and I would like in the larger picture for all the Congress parties to come together and fight the next Parliament elections.â€
Faleiro added that he suffered in dignified silence in Congress.
Veteran Goa Cong leader, former Goa CM & Navelim MLA @luizinhofaleiro
set to join TMC today. Says he suffered in dignified silence in Congress. Says @MamataOfficial is a streetfighter, poses real direct challenge to BJP, Goa suffering, needs someone like her.@IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/22H5x9FTUs— Mayura Janwalkar (@mayura) September 27, 2021
The Indian Express had earlier reported that TMC is aiming to contest all 40 seats in the state. Senior TMC leaders Derek O’Brien and Prasun Banerjee arrived in the state last week and have been holding discussions with politicians and civil society members, the sources said.
Seventy-one year old Faleiro, who is the sitting MLA from south Goa’s Navelim, served as chief minister of the state in 1998-99. A Congress veteran, Faleiro has also served as AICC general secretary in-charge of Northeast states.
The Congress is left with only five MLAs in the 40-member house. In 2019, ten MLAs from the Congress defected to the BJP.
