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‘Goa unit cruel parody of Congress’: Ex-CM Luizinho Faleiro quits, may join TMC
Speculations are rife that Faleiro, who was recently made the Goa Congress’s campaign committee chief for the state polls next year, is likely to join the TMC soon.
Former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro on Monday resigned as member of Goa legislative assembly and from the primary membership of the Congress, alleging that the party had become a “cruel parody of what the Congress stands for”.
Speculations are rife that Faleiro, who was recently made the Goa Congress’s campaign committee chief for the state polls next year, is likely to join the Trinamool Congress soon. He is also expected to travel to Kolkata on Tuesday.
In his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, the Congress leader claimed that the Goa unit of the party is led by a “coterie” of leaders whose priority is personal gains.
“Madam, the Congress in Goa is not the same party for which we had sacrificed and fought. It is functioning contrary to every ideal and principle of its founding fathers upheld by Smt Indiraji, Shri Raviji and you,” he wrote.
“Shri Rahul Gandhi too has been uncompromising in his fight against the forces that seek to destroy the fabric of our nation. However, the Goa unit of the party has become a cruel parody of what the Congress stands for. Led by a coterie of leaders who prioritize personal gains over the responsibility we owe to our people. We have utterly failed to be an effective opposition... I see absolutely no hope or even the will to prevent the collapse of the party and the change for the better,” he added.
Faleiro was a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and was known to be close to Sonia. The MLA from Navelim assembly seat handed over a terse resignation letter to Speaker Rajesh Patnekar shortly after noon.
“I, Luizinho Faleiro, hereby tender my resignation of my seat in the house w.e.f. 27th Sep 2021. I thank the people of #Navelim for placing their trust in me & look forward to their continued support in all future endeavors. #Goa #newbeginnings,” he tweeted.
Minutes before resigning, Faleiro heaped praises on West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, saying the country needs a leader like her to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I have been a Congressman for 40 years and I will continue to be a Congressman of the Congress family. This family has to come together if we have to fight Modi. Among all the four Congresses, it is Mamata Banerjee who has given a tough fight to Modi and their juggernaut… the Mamata formula has won. She has been able to stand. We in Goa are also going through difficult times. We need such fighters. I would like all the larger parties to come together and fight the next Parliament elections,” he told reporters.
“I interacted with my constituents from Navelim, they are my family, and it was important to me to seek their blessings for a #NewBeginning. I might be old, but my blood is young. I am determined to change things. Let’s end this suffering of #Goans and bring a new dawn in #Goa,” he added.
Following a bitterly-fought and intense battle with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Banerjee and her party swept the West Bengal assembly elections in May this year and returned to power.
Faleiro had earlier remained tight-lipped on his political plans only revealing that he had met members of the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) led by political strategist Prashant Kishor as part of their regular surveys in Goa. While on Monday, he did not declare that he was joining the TMC, he hinted at a possible announcement.
Faleiro dismissed reports that he was peeved at the party high command’s decision to stick with incumbent state Congress chief Girish Chodankar, who succeeded him back in 2017.
“The leadership role they would have given me anytime. My Goa is suffering, my Goa is bleeding and I will fight for Goa. I am a Congressman. I believe in the Congress ideology, philosophy and programmes. I will never join any other party other than Congress,” he said.
He said his resignation was to start a ‘movement’ to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “Today my Goa is suffering from maladministration, bleeding because of wrong policies, programmes and I cannot allow Goa to bleed. My resignation is a call for a unification. The Congress of Jawarharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabbhai Patel was not a party but a movement. I belong to the Congress family, ideology and for what Congress has stood for. The Congress is a divided Congress, there is a need for a unified Congress and those leaders who have shown the way to fight BJP,” he said.
‘It is my dream that in this assembly election we start but in Parliamentary elections ,we should all come together and ensure a movement. Goa needs a credible alternative. My resignation is a call for unification,” he added.
With his resignation, the Congress’s strength in the 40-member Goa assembly has been reduced to four. The Congress had won 17 seats in the 2017 state assembly elections, but later a number of MLAs resigned from the party.
In July 2019, 10 MLAs quit the party and joined the ruling BJP.
Besides Faleiro, several of his loyalists also quit the party earlier in the day.
Faleiro was elected to the Goa Legislative Assembly in 1979 and has represented the Navelim constituency since then, except between 2007 and 2017, when he lost the seat to rival Churchill Alemão of the Save Goa Front. Alemão is presently a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator.
Faleiro has had short stints as chief minister during Goa’s turbulent political years when the state saw 13 chief ministers in 12 years between 1990 and 2002. In 1999, when he served as chief minister, he travelled on a junket to Australia only to return to find his place taken by Francisco Sardinha, the present Congress South Goa MP.
As general secretary of AICC from 2013 till 2017, he was in-charge of the seven north eastern states of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura.
The TMC’s entry into Goa’s political space is likely to further splinter an already crowded political space in the state. Besides the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, the Goa Forward Party with three MLAs, the NCP and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) with one MLA each also are vying for a slice of power.
Trinamool MLA Derek O’Brien was in Goa over the weekend and announced that the party was “very serious” about contesting the upcoming polls in Goa but didn’t divulge any detailed plans.
Reacting to the developments, Congress Goa incharge Dinesh Gundu Rao said that Faleiro had opted for a ‘voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) package’.
“Sometimes when you are retiring, you take a VRS. This could be a VRS. When you feel that now there is nothing for me here, just take something and go. I was not convinced by anything he was saying. It was only very pure I would say, self motivation was there. It is sad that people at the fag end of their careers take these kind of decision... I wish him luck,” Rao said.
“For the moment, it is a psychological disadvantage for the Congress because it gives the impression that it is a sinking ship. Faleiro himself is in the twilight of his political career and was unlikely to be re-elected. Beyond that, however, the damage the TMC can potentially cause will be determined by how many people they can bring into the fold and their capacity to split the anti-BJP vote,” political analyst Cleofato Almeida Coutinho said.
