Far from heralding a ‘new dawn’ for Goans, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) appears to be foundering ahead of the 40-seat Goa Assembly election slated to be held next month.
The party signalled its intent to expand its footprint in the coastal State when former Congressman and stalwart Goan leader Luizinho Faleiro — a former Chief Minister and seven-time MLA — joined the TMC. The adhesion of tennis star Leander Paes to the party added a dash of glamour to the TMC’s onward march to win Goa.
Mr. Faleiro was promptly 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 colourful 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 earliest ‘recruits’ including Lavoo Mamledar, the TMC’s general secretary Yatish Naik, Doris Teixeira and Mr. Lourenço have deserted the TMC. Mr. Mamledar, while exiting the TMC, accused the West Bengal-based party of being “communal” in nature and “worse than the BJP”.
Another setback followed when Mr. Faleiro, whose candidacy had been announced for the Fatorda constituency, backed-out at the eleventh hour. The TMC leader had reportedly been upset with the party brass for announcing his candidacy without consulting him. It also did not help that the 70-year-old Mr. Faleiro, who has scant clout in Fatorda, 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 signaled in its campaign song and countless billboard advertisements dotted throughout the coastal State — is wearing thin 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 Ms. Banerjee’s party win a landslide in the 2021 West Bengal election.
Manifesto release
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 Mr. Dhavalikar, the lone MGP legislator, nor its other prominent leaders such as Jit Arolkar were present on the occasion, with the MGP instead deputing its party working president to attend the event.
Grapevine has it that Mr. Dhavalikar, a five-term MLA from Marcaim, is miffed with the TMC for not considering him as the Chief Ministerial candidate.
“Of all parties that are contesting in Goa’s poll fray, it is the TMC that has struggled most to rid itself of the stamp 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. Further, the absence of MGP leaders during the manifesto release does not augur well for the party. Even Luizinho Faleiro has been extremely diffident during the campaign. One doesn’t see the veteran even his own constituency of Navelim, which he held seven times previously,” says Goa-based political analyst and economist Manoj Kamat.
The party’s 10-point manifesto was a rash of promises — reiterating the TMC’s schemes of giving ₹5,000 per month for one woman per household (the ‘Griha Laxmi’ Scheme), loans at the rate of 4% interest up to ₹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 subsidised houses 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 in everything into the kitchen sink. The TMC’s promises make no economic sense whatsoever given that Goa’s debt burden is in excess of ₹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 concrete agenda and the party’s credibility has been seriously undercut with its aggressive approach against the Congress rather than against the ruling BJP, whom it is professing to supplant.
‘Acquisition’ strategy
For all its promises to clean Goa’s political slate, the TMC, in an ironical emulation of the BJP’s ‘acquisition’ strategy, has spent its time in poaching candidates, though mainly from the Congress.
“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 Mr. Faleiro and Mr. Alemao,” says another political observer.
The fact that the TMC has not put up a strong candidate in 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.
“Like a petulant child, the TMC has instead kicked up a rumpus 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 stomach that the TMC is seriously fighting the BJP,” observes Dr. Kamat.
