PANAJI
The Congress' exodus woes continued on Monday when its three-term Curtorim MLA, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, in an unexpected development quit his membership of the Goa legislative Assembly and the party.
He later drove to the Dabolim airport and flew out to Kolkata where he is expected to join the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
On Monday morning, Lourenco submitted his resignation to the Legislature Secretary Namrata Ulman, at the Assembly complex in Porvorim just four days after the Congress named him in the first list of eight candidates for the upcoming elections.
Lourenco's loyalty, was under the Congress leadership's lens though, ever since it was widely reported that he was to join the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in early November. After a bout of intense fire-fighting by the Digambar Kamat-Girish Chodankar duo, Lourenco then stopped in his tracks and it was thought that all is well.
The 'Reginaldo leaving Congress' chapter had seemingly been closed when the All India Congress Committee gave him a designation of import -- one of two GPCC working presidents -- when suddenly he was back in the news, fumbling for words when caught on camera at midnight in the same hotel as ruling BJP election in-charge and Maharashtra Opposition Leader Devendra Fadnavis.
The principal Opposition party is now left with just two MLAs -- Kamat and former chief minister Pratapsing Rane -- but the Congress leaders sought to put up a brave face while reacting to Lourenco's exit.
While Chodankar said it was good that he left now rather than after getting elected, Kamat sought to exude confidence on behalf of the Congress saying in tweet: "Congress Party has successfully faced many storms, floods & tsunamis. Our functionaries have strength & mettle to defeat opportunists."
The most acerbic reaction to Lourenco's desertion however came from the AICC Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao.
In a tweet, Rao said: "People who do things selfishly and betray trust will face the consequences."
"After taking whatever he could and misleading us till the last minute, if he could lie and cheat us, I’m sure the voters of #Curtorim will teach him a befitting lesson. @INCGoa is undeterred and unfazed," Rao added in his tweet.
The Congress leadership's brave-faced reactions notwithstanding, Lourenco's exit couldn't have come at a worse time for the beleaguered party, both at the State level as well as in the Curtorim constituency.
At the State level the exit of another one of its top-rung leaders who was named in its first list of eight candidates is super embarrassing, in Curtorim the Congress is left with no credible face to project.
After the party had coerced Lourenco to stay back and not leave the party, virtually signalling that it will go with him for the hustings, former Curtorim ZP member Moreno Rebello, who Chodankar had made it more than obvious had his confidence, had quit and joined the BJP.
Now, with no leader in Curtorim with credentials of a 'winnable' candidate, the party may now have to fall back on its South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha to give it much needed fillip in a constituency it has won in all elections save the time that the latter was humbled by Lourenco in 2007.
