PANAJI
The Trinamool Congress will be victorious in the upcoming state assembly elections in Goa, the party's newest inductee and former Goa Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro said at a formal induction ceremony in Kolkata on Wednesday, even as party MP and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, claimed that the party would go it solo in the Goa polls.
Faleiro, who quit the Congress earlier this week, also said that the synergy between breakaway factions of the Congress, namely the YSR Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Trinamool Congress and the Indian National Congress will be obvious in the Goa assembly polls in the battle against the ruling BJP.
"There is a constraint of time, but remember, the people in Goa are upset, they are fed up. They are looking for an alternative arrangement, an alternative leadership and I am sure even if it is one month, two months, or three months (to the polls), we will pick up, we will win we will triumph," Faleiro told a press conference, following his induction along with other Goa politicians including former MGP MLA Lavu Mamledar, Yatish Naik, Vijai Pai among others.
Faleiro also reiterated his dream to bring different factions of the Congress under one umbrella to take on the BJP and said that vision will be first implemented in Goa.
"I call upon everybody whether it is TMC, whether it is YSR or whether Sharad Pawar Congress to come together and take the rightful place as a united Congress family so that in the upcoming elections we can face the BJP and face their government. And I feel the moment has come for everybody to join forces and be part of the movement to defeat divisive forces and bring a new dawn in every nook and corner of the country," Faleiro said.
"When I talk of Goa, I talk of my country. So, if there has been some problems... obviously because of the problems Congress is fragmented into YSR, TMC, Sharad Pawar Congress. It is high time we fight against divisive politics as one Congress family. There is no other choice. There is no other alternative, but we have to come together. If that has not been there, it will take place and you will see it in Goa," Faleiro said.
He however refused to criticise the leadership of the top two Congress Sonia and Rahul, preferring to blame the local leadership for the 2017 post-election fracas, which cost the Congress a chance to form its government.
"If you expect me to criticise Congress president (Sonia Gandhi) and Rahul Gandhi, I will not do it. I have got forty years of relationship. I have respect and therefore I will not talk against the two leaders, but the fact is in Goa, we have failed and miserably failed the people of Goa, their aspirations and mandate which was in favour of the Congress," he said.
