TUESDAY, MAY 07, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ‘Didi’ has finally blown the poll bugle in Goa. ‘Goa Te Khela Hobe’ (and the games will begin in Goa) is what she said at her own by-election rally in Bhawanipur two days ago. She then sent two of her MPs – general and national chief spokesman Derek O’Brien and former India football captain and Arjuna Awardee Prasun Banerjee – to Goa.
Speaking to Herald on Saturday, O’Brien said his party would be contesting next year’s Goa Assembly polls. The party will announce its Chief Ministerial candidate soon, he added. “We are here as a serious contender against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Mamata Banerjee-led party has no ‘high-command culture’ and will pick credible local leaders in the coastal State,” he said.
O’Brien also specified that TMC will have no pre-poll alliance with any political party in Goa. “It is not a Bengal party coming to Goa. The Goan party in Goa will be for Goa, of Goa and by Goa.”
Since arriving in Goa on Friday, O'Brien has been meeting representatives of civil society as well as political leaders.
O’Brien added that they have done their ground work and claimed that TMC is the only political party which works with an action team and agency. The agency is in Goa since mid-July and has done extensive research and also got the real picture of Goa. At present TMC has five-year contract with the I-PAC, a cutting edge political research, analysis and poll execution agency led by Prashant Kishore, whose staff numbering 180 are currently in Goa.
O’Brien himself will be camping in Goa till the run-up to the Goa Assembly elections except for attending Parliamentary sessions. Also, 3-4 TMC MPs will join the Goa election campaign. “Moreover, the electorate of Goa is angry on both the national parties – BJP and Congress – hence TMC will have a credible leader as the party’s face for the elections and would field fresh faces,” he said.
“TMC is not here to divide votes, hence we are confident that people of Goa will vote for the strongest party like how people of West Bengal voted in the Assembly polls in May this year,” he added.
TMC has decided to contest 2022 Goa Assembly elections and the Tripura Assembly polls which are due in 2023.
