Jolt to Congress as former Goa CM Luizinho Faleiro set to quit today, may join TMC

PANAJI: In a major setback to Congress ahead of the assembly election likely to be held in early 2022, two-time Goa chief minister and sitting MLA from Navelim Luizinho Faleiro is likely to resign from the party and also from the legislature on Monday to join Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Faleiro, who was a close aide of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and claimed to be a “loyal soldier” of the party, is likely to tender his resignation to Goa assembly speaker Rajesh Patnekar on Monday afternoon.

Sources said Faleiro has been offered a Rajya Sabha seat by TMC and the party wants to use his long stint in the north-eastern region as the AICC in-charge to help strengthen its base.
Faleiro neither denied nor confirmed the development. “I am in deep meditation. I am reading everyone. One thing I’ll tell you is that people of Goa are suffering. Somebody has to stand up. I will give you my comments at the appropriate time,” he said.
With this development, Congress which had won 17 seats under his presidentship in 2017 assembly polls, will find its numbers further reduced to four in the 40-member House.
Sources said some of Faleiro's close aides may also resign from Congress to join TMC along with him. His close aides have said that he was sidelined by the party leadership in the state.
He was a strong contender for the state party presidentship, before incumbent Girish Chodankar was retained as the state president earlier this month. To placate him, Congress had made him chief of its election coordination committee for Goa.
Faleiro’s move comes at a time when Congress has been trying hard to revive its base in the state under the mentorship of P Chidambaram.
“Faleiro quitting Congress may not be of much consequence. He was facing a huge anti-incumbency in Navelim. But it certainly creates a psychological disadvantage to Congress as its skeletal presence in the House would be further depleted with all flesh removed,” political observer Cleofato Almeida Coutinho said.
Sources said the profile of Navelim constituency, from where he had won several times in the past, had changed with AAP making strong inroads in the once Congress bastion. Some independents were also to contest from the constituency.
In this backdrop, political observers said it would not have been a very smooth sailing for Faleiro in the 2022 polls.
“It will embolden BJP, which faces an all-time high anger of people over bad administration and Covid mismanagement,” Coutinho said.
Senior functionaries of TMC, including its parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’ Brien and Lok Sabha MP Prasun Banerjee, are already in Goa.
TMC had contested 20 seats in the 2012 assembly election under the leadership of former chief minister Wilfred de Souza and secured less than 2% of the total vote share. Churchill Alemao had also unsuccessfully contested the South Goa parliamentary elections on a TMC ticket in 2014.
Faleiro was first elected on a Congress ticket in 1980 from Navelim and since then he has continuously won the seat till he was defeated in 2007 by Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao. Faleiro did not contest the 2012 assembly election.
In 2017, Congress fought the assembly polls under his leadership and won 17 seats to become the single largest party in Goa assembly, but failed to form the government.
In 1999, with Faleiro as the party president, Congress secured 21 seats, which was the first time any political party had achieved the feat in Goan politics.
After Faleiro had lost the assembly election in 2007, he was made AICC general secretary for northeast states and under his guidance, the party had won elections.