MARGAO
After days of speculations, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Churchill Alemao and daughter Valanka will formally embrace the Trinamool Congress at the Dando grounds, Benaulim on Monday.
The duo will be inducted by TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee at a public rally, which is expected to bring together supporters of the Alemao family from both Benaulim and Navelim.
While Churchill will seek re-election from Benaulim on the TMC banner, daughter Valanka has firmly set her eyes on neighbouring Navelim in the coming polls.
That the duo has decided to join the TMC became evident late last month when they headed to Kolkata for a meeting with the TMC Chief. After returning, Churchill had announced to take a decision within 15 days.
Earlier on Sunday, All India Trinamool Congress Party chief Mamata Banerjee arrived in Goa on her two-day long visit. The West Bengal Chief Minister will have a packed two day schedule where she will be addressing public meetings.
On Monday, Banerjee will be holding a meeting with prominent editors of media houses at the international centre. Later she will hold a meeting with all Goa TMC leaders.
Banerjee is also scheduled to address a public meeting at Benaulim on Monday. On Tuesday, she has planned public meetings at Panaji and Assonora.
The party leader is on her second visit to Goa in a period of less than two months. She had visited Goa in the last week of October. From the last visit till now many new developments in Goa politics have happened with respect to TMC.
For Churchill, joining the TMC is like a home coming after a gap of six years. Churchill had joined the TMC on the eve of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to contest the South Goa seat on the party banner.
The exit of Churchill from the NCP brings down curtains on his five-year long association with the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress party. “I had given time to my party leadership to work out the alliance deal with the Congress. However, the alliance could not materialise for reasons best known to the Congress and the NCP leaders. Hence, I have decided to join the TMC”, he told The Goan.
Sources in the know say while the Congress was ready to stitch an alliance with the NCP by leaving a couple of seats for the Sharad Pawar-led party, the Principal opposition party, however, was firmly
opposed to conceding the Navelim seat for Churchill’s daughter Valanka.
On the other hand, Churchill had been insisting on a ticket for his daughter, who had already kicked off her campaign for the Navelim seat.
Political observers say that Churchill’s entry into the Mamata Didi-led party is expected to catapult the TMC as a key challenger for the Congress and other political parties, at least in the constituencies of Benaulim and Navelim.
