Trinamool Congress seems to have lost the plot in Goa Assembly elections

@the_news_21

Mumbai: Instead of heralding a ‘new dawn’ for Goans, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) appears to be confused and lost ahead of the 40-seat Goa Assembly polls on February 14. 

The party signaled its intent to expand its footprint in Goa when former Congressman and stalwart Goan leader Luizinho Faleiro, a former Chief Minister and seven-time MLA joined the TMC. The addition of tennis star Leander Paes to the party added a dash of glamour to the TMC’s onward march to win Goa.  

Faleiro was made the party’s national vice-president and a Rajya Sabha MP. This was followed by an influx of leaders into the TMC from the colorful party-hopper and five-time MLA Churchill Alemao to ex-Congress MLA from Curtorim, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, who had joined the TMC despite the Congress already announcing his candidature in the first list.  

Barely four months later, a number of their early bird ‘recruits’ including Lavoo Mamledar, the TMC’s general secretary Yatish Naik, Doris Teixeira and Lourenço have left the TMC. Lavoo Mamledar, while quitting the TMC accused the West Bengal-based party of being “communal” in nature and “worse than the BJP”. 

Another setback followed when Faleiro, who was nominated from the Fatorda constituency withdrew from the poll fray at the last minute. The TMC leader had reportedly been upset with the party brass for announcing his candidacy without consulting him. It is also a different matter that the 70-year-old Faleiro has little political clout in Fatorda and had no wish to play a losing hand at a twilight stage in his political career.  

The TMC’s promise of ‘Goenchi Navi Sakal’ (a new dawn for Goans) as stated in its campaign song and countless billboard advertisements dotted throughout Goa has begun to wane with several political observers predicting a near-complete rout for the party in the February 14 election. 

According to observers, ever since the TMC entered Goa four months ago, the overwhelming impression has been that it was political strategist Prashant Kishore’s policy outfit Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) rather than the Goan TMC which was operating things on ground. The I-PAC, which has been advising the TMC, has been credited with helping Mamata Banerjee’s party win a landslide in the 2021 West Bengal assembly election.  

But the clearest instance of just how badly the party’s Goa campaign was proceeding came last week during the release of the TMC’s manifesto. The occasion was marked by the conspicuous absence of its Goa ally Sudin Dhavalikar, the leader of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). 

Neither Sudin Dhavlikar, the lone MGP legislator, nor other prominent MGP leaders like Jit Arolkar were present on the occasion, with the MGP instead deputing its party working president to attend the event. Sources disclosed that Sudin Dhavalikar, a five-term MLA from Marcaim, is miffed for the TMC not considering him as the Chief Ministerial candidate. 

Of all political parties that are in the Goa assembly poll fray, it is the TMC that has struggled most to rid itself of the tag of being an ‘outside party’. The party has not been able to build a perception of ‘Goan-ness’. Given that its MPs Mahua Moitra and Sushmita Dev address the majority of party events, there is confusion among ordinary Goans as to whether the TMC has a local spokesperson of its own or not?

Further, the absence of MGP leaders during the manifesto release function does not augur well for the party. Even Luizinho Faleiro has been extremely diffident during the campaign. According to Goa-based political analyst and economist, Dr. Manoj Kamat, “One doesn’t see the veteran even in his own constituency of Navelim, which he held seven times previously.” 

The party’s 10-point manifesto is a rash of promises, from reiterating the TMC’s schemes of giving Rs 5,000 per month for one woman per household (the ‘Griha Laxmi’ Scheme), loans at the rate of 4% interest up to Rs 20-lakh for unemployed youth to start their own business, and title and ownership rights of land under possession to all Goan families residing in the state since before 1976 and 50,000 subsidized homes to homeless families. The party has also promised to restart mining – a burning issue in Goa – within 250 days of coming to power. 

“The manifesto throws everything into the kitchen sink. The TMC’s promises make no economic sense whatsoever given that Goa’s debt burden is in excess of Rs. 23,000 crores. So, there simply is not any financial space for such extravagantly populist schemes,” says Dr. Kamat.  

The TMC’s experimenting in Goa has not been backed by any credible agenda and the party’s credibility has been seriously undercut with its aggressive approach against the Congress rather than against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whom it is trying to remove from power.  

For all its promises to clean Goa’s political slate, the TMC has ironically copied the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJPs) ‘acquisition’ strategy by poaching candidates mainly form the Congress.

According to another political observer, “The big difference here is that the BJP’s ‘imports’ from other parties are inducted strictly on the basis of winnability, while the TMC’s candidates are spent political forces like Faleiro and Alemao.”

The fact that the TMC has not put up a strong candidate from Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s constituency Sankhali (Sanquelim) or is supporting other parties in defeating the BJP Chief Minister goes against the party’s claims of fighting to rid the BJP in Goa. 

Dr Kamat further remarked, “Like a grumpy child, the TMC has instead kicked up a furor over the Congress not doing enough to form an anti-BJP front, all the while continuing to poach leaders from the latter and engaging in verbal duels with Congressmen. The people find it hard to believe that the TMC is seriously fighting the BJP.”