SEEING ‘ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE’, GOA CONGRESS LEADER RESIGNS; ALL SET TO JOIN TMC

Former Goa Chief Minister and one of the most senior and loyal leaders of the Congress in Goa, Luizinho Faleiro, tendered his resignation today as Member of Legislative Assembly. He was an MLA of the Navelim constituency in South Goa. Faleiro tendered his resignation to Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly Rajesh Patnekar. His resignation from the Congress, his party of 40 years, comes ahead of his entry into the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) that has decided to contest the upcoming Goa Assembly Elections 2022. Faleiro is widely expected to be projected as the Chief Minister face of the TMC and the strategy is focused on wooing the minority voter base in the state.

In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, Faleiro was considerably sullen and dejected as he recalled the Congress’s depletion in Goa from the point in 2017 when power was within the party’s reach. “Till now, (no one is) being held accountable for the loss of 13 of our MLAs… I see absolutely no hope or even the will to prevent the collapse of the party and change for the better,” wrote the veteran. Faleiro also said the Congress “is not the same party for which we had sacrificed and fought”.

The 70-year-old is widely expected to join the TMC and all but announced it as he showered praise on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “Mamata Banerjee has given a tough fight to Narendra Modi. The Mamata formula has won in Bengal. She has been able to stand up, she is a street fighter. Goa is also going through difficult times. We need such fighters who are in the same wave length, same party, same ideology, principles and programmes. Country needs a leader like Mamata,” Luizinho Faleiro told reporters when asked to confirm about his party switch.

Faleiro asserted that he would continue to be a “Congressman of the larger Congress family”, implying that he saw the Trinamool as the Congress offshoot best equipped to fight the BJP. Among all four Congresses, it is Mamata who has given a tough fight to (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and their juggernaut,” said the former Chief Minister. “I am a Congressman; I would like larger picture of all the Congress parties to come and fight next parliamentary election. I would do everything to achieve this dream. It is definitely my dream,” he further added.

Following the resignation of Faleiro, the strength of Congress party in the Goa State Legislative Assembly has been reduced to four. Congress had won on 17 seats during 2017 Assembly election, after which  it witnessed a series of resignations over the year. A group of 10 MLAs had quit the party in July 2019 to join BJP.

Reacting to Faleiro’s resignation, All India Congress Committee (AICC) Desk-in-Charge Dinesh Gundu Rao said that Faleiro’s resignation is not a setback for Congress, but a blessing. Dinesh Gundu Rao arrived in Goa early this evening to take stock of the crisis facing Congress in the state post Faleiro’s resignation. He said, “We have got a lot of information that Faleiro has lost touch with the people. We have received a lot of negative news from his constituency.”

“There are many people from the Navelim constituency who want to contest the Goa Assembly Election under the Congress banner,” Dinesh Gundu Rao claimed.