PANAJI
His father may have been a die-hard supporter of Luizinho Faleiro, the now former MLA of Navelim constituency, but Avertano Furtado on Tuesday joined the Congress party, a party which the former Fisheries Minister claimed was always his family's favourite.
Furtado's entry into the Congress comes a day after the exit of former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro, who resigned as Navelim MLA and from the party's primary membership, with an eye on a plum position in the Trinamool Congress.
"My family has always been supporters of the Congress. My dad was a supporter of Faleiro from the time he contested for the first time from Navelim.
"When news spread that Faleiro was leaving Congress to join TMC, my supporters flocked to me and said why don’t you join Congress? People of Navelim are really disheartened because our MLA has disowned us. He left the constituency like a hot cake," Furtado told a press conference at the state Congress headquarters in Panaji.
"Navelim will never forgive him for this. People realise that supporting him for four and a half years was useless. They now say, that if he (Faleiro) thinks of coming back, we will teach him a lesson," Furtado said.
Furtado had clashed swords with Faleiro in the 2017 state assembly polls, but lost the elections to Faleiro. Previously, he had won the Navelim seat in 2012 as an independent candidate supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party. After his victory, Furtado was appointed as a cabinet minister in the Manohar Parrikar-led government.
"That time I was an independent candidate and I extended support to the BJP government. I did do a lot staying with the BJP, but heart-to-heart, I thought I would join the Congress sometime," Furtado said.
It’s not that Furtado, in the past, had not made overtures to Congress leaders especially Leader of Opposition and state Congress president Girish Chodankar -- he used to meet the latter on a badminton court -- but both leaders had been lukewarm in their response, for obvious reasons.
"I used to keep asking them, do you think I stand a chance to contest on a Congress ticket. The answer (from Opposition leader and Chodankar) was not positive, because there was a senior leader who was representing my constituency," Furtado said.
Chodankar also told the press conference that Furtado had unconditionally joined the Congress, adding that there had been no deal about a guaranteed ticket (to contest the Navelim seat) struck with Furtado.
