Despite a high-decibel campaign, a pre-poll alliance and the might of poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s iPAC, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) was completely rejected by the Goan voter. It ended with no seats in the 40-member Assembly and a vote share of 5.21 per cent.
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Contesting from TMC, former Goa chief minister Churchill Alemao, a five-time MLA who has won from Benaulim seat on different party tickets, lost to AAP debutant Venzy Viegas.
In neighboring Navelim, also in Salcete taluka, where BJP has often found it hard to win, the ruling party had an advantage after votes were split between Alemao’s daughter, Valanka, who contested from the constituency on a TMC ticket, the Congress and AAP, who all fielded “winnable” candidates.
Then with Congress, Luizinho Faleiro had won from Navelim in 2017. He was the first MLA to join TMC in Goa and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
The TMC arrived in Goa with much pomp and fare towards the end of September last year. That its entry was late for a serious contender was something the party denied consistently. While Banerjee made two trips to the state before the elections, she did not come to the state to campaign for the party’s candidates.
The party had put up hundreds of hoardings across the coastal state, bearing the West Bengal chief minister’s face. Missing from the hoardings were members of its Goa unit and the party candidates.
Battling the “outsider” tag that weighs heavily on the Goan voter, Banerjee had said during her visits that Goans who govern Goa. The Goans, however, remained in the background, as the party’s state in-charge, Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra, made major announcements on behalf of the party and raised various issues related to the state. Moitra raised issues in Goa, including death of a woman whose body was found on Calangute beach, and the allegedly illegal structure in Old Goa, and accused Chief Minister Pramod Sawant of purchasing a “mine” that was disproportionate to his income.
The TMC also announced a host of schemes that it planned to implement and claimed lakhs of beneficiaries had registered to receive the benefits..
In what the BJP termed as “unholy”, TMC and Goa’s oldest regional party, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, formalised a pre-poll alliance in December 2021. Banerjee shared the stage with MGP leaders Ramkrishna alias Sudin Dhavalikar and Pandurang alias Deepak Dhavalikar. Pandering to MGP’s saffron vote bank, she asserted her Hindu Brahmin identity.
Until Wednesday, Dhavalikar, who hoped to win up to five seats in the election, said the decision to support any other party would be taken together with TMC. On Thursday, TMC drew a blank, while MGP, which won two seats, pledged support to BJP.
TMC leaders remained unavailable for a comment on Thursday.