Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she had chosen Goa for her party’s westward foray as the Congress was unable to defeat the BJP and a son of the soil would be the chief minister if Trinamul came to power in the state.
“We will not interfere. Goa’s son of the soil will be the chief minister here. Goa will be developed by Goans, we will only help,” said Mamata at a public meeting in Benaulim, Goa. This was her second visit to Goa in less than a month.
Goa goes to the polls in February.
“We want the church to stay well, the mosque too. We want the temple to stay well, the gurdwara too. So that the administration works well, there is media freedom…. So that the people progress. That is what would please my heart. I did not come here for myself, I came here for you (the people of Goa),” she added.
Although the main target of her attack was the BJP, Mamata didn’t spare the Congress either for failing to take on the BJP. In her address, Mamata accused the Congress of selling out in Goa, referring to the controversial power-grab of 2017, when the BJP had formed the government there, despite securing only 13 seats.
The Congress had 17 MLAs when the majority mark was 21.
Besides the public meeting at Benaulim, Mamata and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee — the national general-secretary of Trinamul — attended a meeting with prominent editors of media houses and another with the party’s Goa leadership, at the International Centre.
Raising her party’s Khela Hobe (the game is on) slogan in Konkani — Khel Jatlo — the Bengal chief minister repeatedly asserted that she was confident of her party’s victory in the 40-seat Goa Assembly.
She made it clear that she had no objection to the joining of forces by all likeminded forces with the common objective of defeating the BJP.
“I chose Goa because… seeing this all over India, that some political parties think of themselves as feudal lords, neither do anything themselves nor do they allow others to do anything. We waited for so long,” said the Bengal chief minister, referring to the Congress — the principal Opposition in Goa.
“I don’t want to speak against the Congress. If the Congress thinks that the work that must be done will be done, to defeat the BJP, I have no objection. We have an alliance here in Goa already…. This is the alternative. If you want to join, join us. No problem,” she added.
Mamata has been battling bitter criticism from the Congress and some of its allies over the recent slew of attacks against it and her party’s attempts to make inroads in states where the Grand Old Party is viewed as likely to emerge victorious in the run-up to the general election of 2024.
The Congress’s fear -- in the state that it otherwise expected to do rather well in, in the February 2022 election -- is that the likes of Trinamul and the AAP would eat into the crucial chunk of around 34 per cent Christian votes, deemed anti-BJP.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Congress’s leader in the Lok Sabha, said Mamata was repeatedly going to Goa as an “agent” of the BJP.
“Why is she having to repeatedly state that she would not compromise in this fight against the BJP, in the end? Only because she has sensed that people are realising that she has been making that compromise… to help divide anti-BJP votes to help the BJP’s cause,” said Chowdhury.
Former Goa chief minister joined Trinamul: Mamata’s Goa team now has two former chief ministers, as the NCP’s Churchill Alemao joined Trinamul and, as the Benaulim MLA, wrote to the Speaker of the Assembly asking the NCP legislature party there – comprising only Alemao – to be recognised as the Trinamul legislature party. The 72-year-old had, in the Congress in 1990, been chief minister for 18 days and then the South Goa MP for two terms. His daughter, Valanka Alemao, joined Trinamul with him. In 2014, the Benaulim MLA had joined Trinamul for a two-year stint.
Former Congress veteran Luizinho Faleiro is another former chief minister of the coastal state who recently joined Trinamul. He is now a national vice-president of the party and a Rajya Sabha member from Bengal.
