MARGAO
Is the election for the Fatorda seat heading for a battle royal with the Trinamool Congress party declaring party Rajya Sabha MP Luizinho Faleiro to cross swords with Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai for the Fatorda seat?
Not likely, with sources close to the Faleiro saying the TMC leader is not interested in throwing his hat in the Fatorda election ring.
Sources said that no sooner the party leadership included his name in the list of party candidates, Faleiro is believed to have abruptly left the media briefing to tell the party leaders that he is not interested in contesting the election from Fatorda.
Faleiro was not available for comments, but sources close to him were categorical in saying the Rajya MP will not contest the coming polls.
The Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai on the other hand sought to downplay TMC’s announcement saying anyone is free to contest an election from anywhere in a democracy. “I have just been told that the TMC has decided to field Faleiro against me in Fatorda. I do not know whether the BJP has found somebody to divide the anti-BJP vote. This is nothing new to me. The people are smart and they will see through the game,” he said.
Fatorda is not new for the TMC Rajya Sabha MP, not just because he stays atop the Borda hillock in the constituency, but almost the entire Fatorda constituency was once part of his Navelim constituency before the delimitation of constituencies in 1989.
Luizinho, along with senior Congress leaders, had descended on Fatorda in the run up to the 2017 Assembly elections. He had remarked that Fatorda is now new to him given that he had once represented the constituency in the early and mid-eighties.
