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Former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro joins Trinamool Congress in Kolkata
Luizinho Falerio resigned from the Congress as well as the Goa assembly earlier week and extended his "support" to the Trinamool Congress.
Former Goa chief minister and Congress leader Luizinho Faleiro on Wednesday joined the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and state minister Subrata Mukherjee were among the senior leaders present at the induction ceremony.
A former president of Goa Congress, Luizinho Faleiro arrived in Kolkata along with a group of loyalists on Tuesday, days after he resigned from Congress as well as Goa assembly.
Although he was tight-lipped on his future political move, until Wednesday, Faleiro extended his support to the Trinamool Congress.
Welcoming the senior Goan leader to the party fold, Mamata Banerjee said the Trinamool Congress would “fight divisive forces and work towards ushering in a new dawn" for Goa.
Former Goa Congress general secretaries Yatish Naik and Vijay Vasudev Poi and former state secretaries of the party, Mario Pinto De Santana and Anand Naik and five others also joined the Trinamool Congress along with Faleiro. Sahitya Akademi Award winner and poet Shivdas Sonu Naik and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party leader Lavoo Mamledar were among them.
The West Bengal chief minister welcomed them all at an event in Kolkata.
In a tweet, the Trinamool posted a video earlier in the day from its recently created official handle for Goa unit of the party that big annoucements were in the offing.
After winning the assembly elections in West Bengal held earlier this year with a thumping majority, and forming the government for the third consecutive time, the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee is eying to expand its base in other states ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Trinamool Congress has already announced to contest the assembly elections in Tripura in 2023 and aims to mark its foot print in Goa which is slated to go to the polls in 2022.
Addressing the media after the induction of Faleiro and other Goan leaders, Abhishek Banerjee said that their fight is not against the Congress or any other party but to defeat the BJP.
“Our fight is not against the Congress or any political party. We need to save India, and for that it is essential to defeat the BJP,” he said, adding that while the Congress has been in the national opposition space for the past seven years it is the TMC that has been consistently defeating the BJP.
"If the Congress isn't doing anything, we can't be sitting ducks. The Congress needs to get out of the armchair and hit the streets. It can't be done by the comfort of sitting in their homes. We aren't a party that exists only on social media, the Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was quoted as saying.
He said the Trinamool Congress is going to put its entire weight behind the Goa unit with the polls ahead.
“When TMC starts the unit in Goa, we will definitely expedite things as 3-3.5 months are left (in polls). The party is going to put its entire weight behind Goa unit and we'll ensure that people of Goa see a new dawn in the days to come,” Banerjee said.
