Goa’s Trinamool
Congress
(TMC) chief Kiran Kandolkar is upset with Prashant Kishore’s political
consultancy firm I-PAC (Indian Political Action Committee) and made known as
much while speaking to the media Monday. Kandolkar, a former member of the Goa
Forward Party (GFP), said Trinamool candidates in Goa were abandoned by I-PAC
after the polls.

Reports of a rift
between Trinamool’s Goa unit and IPAC have been doing the rounds for a while,
according to a PTI report. The Prashant Kishore-led company was instrumental in
the Trinamool’s massive victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls, but the bonhomie
seems to have soured.

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“All candidates
fielded by the TMC have some or the other issue with the I-PAC. When the
candidates told me about their issues with Prashant Kishore and his I-PAC team,
I discussed the matter with my party workers, who advised me to quit as the TMC
Goa president,” Kandolkar told the media adding that he was not quitting as the
coastal state’s TMC chief.

“I am not quitting
as TMC Goa head, but I am upset with Prashant Kishore and the I-PAC team,” he
said.

Goa, India’s
smallest state, went to polls on February 14 to elect its 40-member legislative
assembly. The Trinamool, one of the newest members in Goa’s political
landscape
, contested the polls in alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party
(MGP). The TMC Goa unit chief contested the polls from Aldona while his wife Kavita
contested on a Trinamool ticket from Thivim.

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The Trinamool
jumped into Goa’s political fray buoyed by its West Bengal victory. However,
the Mamata Banerjee-led party has hardly had a smooth ride in the coastal
state. A couple of months in the run-up to the polls, five significant members,
including former MLA Lavoo Mamledar quit the party accusing the Trinamool of “trying
to divide Goans”.

While resigning from
the party, the departing leaders also made their issues with IPAC known. “The
company which you all have hired for your campaign in Goa is fooling Goans and
they have not understood the pulse of Goans,” they said.

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They further accused
IPAC of running a data collection scheme. Citing an example of the promised
Griha Laxmi scheme under which the Trinamool promised to provide Rs 5,000 to
every woman in Goa every month, the departing members said, “This clearly
indicates that in Goa Griha Laxmi scheme is nothing but collection of data for
the elections (sic).”