Weeks before the Goa Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) Friday proposed a larger alliance of the Opposition parties, including the Congress, to take on the ruling BJP in the coastal state.
Expressing the Mamata Banerjee-led party’s willingness to join hands with the Congress and other Opposition parties to fight the BJP in the Goa polls, TMC MP and its Goa in-charge Mahua Moitra, in a Twitter post, said, “Rest assured, we the AITC will do everything possible to defeat BJP in Goa…@Mamataofficial has done it in past & will not shy away from walking extra mile in Goa too.”
Rest assured, we the AITC will do everything possible to defeat BJP in Goa- @Goaforwardparty , @INCGoa@AITC4Goa and #MGP. @Mamataofficial has done it in past & will not shy away from walking extra mile in Goa too.
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) January 7, 2022
Besides the Congress, Moitra tagged the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) in this tweet. While the Congress has formed an alliance with the GFP, the TMC, a new player in the Goa fray, has tied up with the MGP for the upcoming polls. The Congress, however, did not seem to be enthused by the proposal, pointing to its bids to poach its legislators and leaders.
“Since the day they (TMC) arrived in Goa, they have been targeting the Congress. They first need to clarify who is their opponent — is it the BJP or the Congress,” Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar told The Indian Express.
“Whose leaders they have poached? Not the BJP’s, they have poached Congress leaders. They have created obstacles in our mission to defeat the BJP. The perception among Goan people at the moment is that they have come to Goa to defeat the Congress,” he said.
Chodankar also alleged that “The impression that we get and the people of Goa get is that the TMC has been brought to Goa by the BJP to destroy the Congress. But we have not been weakened…”
Chodankar, who also met Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut earlier this week, said that the Congress has been in talks with the Sena and the NCP, its partners in the ruling coalition in the neighbouring Maharashtra, to work together in Goa as well. Senior Congress leader and its Goa election observer, P Chidambaram, had recently mounted an attack on the TMC and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), accusing them of “fracturing” the “non-BJP” vote in Goa, while claiming that only his party had the capacity to beat the BJP in the state.
During her first visit to Goa in October, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had gone after the Congress, charging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gained from the Congress’s “indecisiveness”. However, during her next visit to Goa two months later, Banerjee said that if the Congress was interested it could join the alliance formed by the TMC and other Opposition parties.
Moitra’s statement on the Opposition alliance came on Friday afternoon, hours after GFP president Vijai Sardesai, in a similar tweet, said that “Team Goa”, including the Congress, TMC, GFP, and MGP should come together to defeat the BJP and “liberate” Goa. He also urged them to be on alert, alleging that the BJP might try to “take advantage under the garb of the Covid restrictions”.
Sardesai has been making a pitch for stitching up a larger coalition. Political sources said the MGP leaders have approached the Congress leaders and that discussions have been underway. However, the proposed alliance might be difficult to forge, given the tense rivalry.
Meanwhile, the BJP leader and Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane said that the proposal was put forward as “parties like the MGP, AAP and TMC could not get any traction on their own”.
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