Former Goa CM Luizinho Faleiro joins Trinamool Congress

Former Goa Chief Minister and MLA Luizinho Faleiro and nine others joined Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Wednesday. This comes two days after Faleiro resigned as an MLA and a primary member of Congress, claiming the state party unit is run by a “coterie” of leaders.

In his resignation letter to All India Congress Committee president Sonia Gandhi, Faleiro described the Goa Congress unit as “a cruel parody of what the Congress stands for”.

Also Read: TMC doing same thing in Goa what BJP did to it in West Bengal, claims Congress

He also accused former AICC Goa Desk in-charge Digvijaya Singh, without naming him, of stopping him to stake claim to form the government in 2017 despite the party having the required number of MLAs on its side.

“I was prevented from going to the governor by the AICC desk in-charge and was asked to wait till we had 24 MLAs, a decision that eventually cost us the government and allowed the BJP to steal the mandate through manipulations and inducements,” he alleged.

After resigning, he also praised TMC chief Mamata Banerjee saying the country needs a leader like her to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He, however, did not reveal his plans amid speculations that he might join the Trinamool Congress. 

On Wednesday morning, Faleiro met Mamata Banerjee. He said that Mamata Banerjee defeated BJP in the state assembly election and asserted that ‘Didi’ will usher in a “new dawn”.

“At the outset, I must say I am a Congressman. I have the same ideology and principles. Today when I am joining the TMC, my dream is to bring together this Congress family. I should try to ensure that the Congress family is again united. My main aim is to defeat the BJP.

“The Congress family is the TMC, Indira Congress, YSR Congress, the Sharad Pawar Congress. The Congress is fragmented. We have to unite all these forces and bring them together. It is only under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee that various factions of the Congress can unite and put up a fight against the BJP,” said Faleiro.