Navi Sakaal is a project that was stillborn. Even the dawn that precedes the early morning did not arrive and the TMC in Goa has literally faded into the sunset.
The gap between promises and achievement has grown bigger and wider and there is no leadership, no functioning committees, and quite honestly, no one who is leading the party at any level. Yes, TMC members are going to office but so are public sector bank employees, but the latter doesn’t have any delusions of creating a political revolution in the state and changing the discourse of the current manner of governance.
Look at the irony of it all. The TMC appointed former hard-hitting batsman and right arm off spinner and world cup winning team member Kirti Azad as Goa state in charge, but so far the move has remained only as a spin.
On May 19, TMC formed a eight-member core committee and a 50-member “ad-hoc” committee. The ad hoc committee was headed by Rajendra Kakodar, a learned academic asset. However, others, including Luizinho Faleiro were made members, under him, merely as lip service. The senior leader of the TMC, a former Chief Minister and earlier a part of the AICC highest decision-making body, in charge of the entire Northeastern States and a proven match winner in elections across the country, was not even included in the eight-member core committee of the TMC Goa.
He who was the founder member of the TMC in Goa, on whose shoulders the party was formed, has been treated like a pariah who is unwanted. But this neglect holds a mirror to TMC’s non-existent growth path in Goa. Luizinho Faleiro’s efficiency as a party builder is already established. He doesn’t need a certificate or a stamp of approval from the TMC.
He fought for Goa and spoke on Goa’s issues as only he could while other veteran MPs elected and selected from Goa, have been visibly silent on issues like double tracking, the draconian Major Ports bills, issue of seafarers and fishermen, etc. He utilized every opportunity he got to stand on his legs and speak for Goa.
In the last Assembly session alone, Faleiro spoke and raised more than a dozen issues and got specific replies on subjects close to Goan hearts like seafarers’ welfare, mining, and coal transportation. At a time when TMC members of state like Meghalaya were pleading with the party leadership to make their voices heard, Faleiro took the floor of the highest temple of democracy the Parliament, and brought Goans issues to the national stage, by himself.
The reasons for the abject cold shoulder given to him by the party after giving him the Rajya Sabha ticket may not be clear. But it is totally unjustified. even though it has done more harm to TMC in Goa than to Mr. Faleiro. Perhaps its leaders could not handle the fact that Faleiro’s stature and popularity would always be higher than theirs
If he, not being someone to accept humiliation easily, now decides to simply walk away to keep his dignity intact, it will clearly be an irreparable loss to TMC in Goa and not to Luizinho Faleiro who has and continues to do more for the state than the TMC.
Let us clearly put this down. The TMC is on its own if it wants to make inroads into Goa. The people of Goa neither want nor care if the party begins to establish itself in Goa or not. It can make Goans at least listen, leave alone accept if they have local leadership functioning as a Goa party. TMC needs local leaders, not outsider lords.
The party to date does not have a leader. Kiran Khandolkar spent some time, lost, and moved out. Most of their candidates have either moved out or logged off from the TMC and it’s irrelevant whether they are in the party or not.
TMC tried to do Kolkata control and dictate to Luizinho what he should do. Why should Goan pride be insulted and a tall Goan leader have to bear it quietly?
Every relationship has starting problems. The relationship between Luiznho Faleiro and TMC was supposed to be of equals. It was Faleiro’s presence that allowed TMC to get a foothold in Goa and the founding team of TMC Goa had many who undertook the “Navi Sakal” mission because of him. But rather than engage with him, they dictated, and rather than consult and confer with him, they controlled.
The decision to include his name as the Fatorda candidate at the very last moment, without the courtesy of getting his confirmation did not blow into a major issue because Luizinho Faleiro maintained a dignified silence and even though he had to face the shock and hurt as he was present in that very press conference, he eased himself out quietly and did not say a word. He has said clearly that he has made his stand clear on not contesting any seat and working throughout the state with a free hand to build his team and strategy.
An arrangement TMC had with the Alemaos to give them two seats meant that even Navelim was taken out of the equation. And his decision not to accept a forced candidature in Fatorda was made to seem as if Faleiro didn’t stand by the party. This was another spin, even before the world cup spinner Kirti Azad joined as the state in charge.
At the end of the day, Luizinho’s track record and credibility in leadership and party building in Goa are beyond comparison with anything that the TMC has done in Goa. Therefore, why should a Goan’s pride be hurt at the cost of a party which has come in from outside and has no base here?
Won’t it be fair to assume that the leadership of the TMC mainly from those outside the state, did not want the natural leadership of Luizinho Faleiro to lead the TMC in the manner that he did when he was in congress? Here, a tried and tested experienced leader was kept in the shadows while ad hoc committees were appointed
Rajya Sabha Member Derek O Brien stayed back to build the party, but this is not about establishing one’s roots in Goa, this is about the party taking root and that has not happened because decision-making is centralized and ironically three is no decision-making that seems to be visible.
On May 19. Kirti Azad the state in charge, while appointing the two committees, the core committee and the ad hoc said membership would be increased and new district and block committees will be constituted in 100 days after which the state-level executive committee would be formed.
That deadline will expire on August 29, exactly three days from now. Where are the new district and block committees one may ask? And where is Shiri Kirti Azad? There is no state-level committee of course, but that’s hardly surprising. There is no state-level party either?
But could all this be a part of the overall confusion and lack of direction in the party in Kolkata and other places? The Firstpost in a report titled “How Mamata Banerjee’s TMC is facing internal rifts and revolt amid corruption row” dated August 23 writes “Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is facing growing internal rifts in the states like Bengal, Tripura, and Meghalaya. After the arrest of TMC strongman Anubrata Mondal and Banerjee extending her support towards him, TMC MLAs have openly slammed the party supremo”
Meanwhile, Faleiro himself appears to have been taken aback at the TMCs decision not to support Margaret Alva as Vice President and not fully backing Yashwant Sinha in his presidential campaign. This has blunted opposition unity totally.,
Firstpost writes again “Mamata Banerjee decided to lead the opposition alliance in the presidential elections and her party agreed to make Yashwant Sinha a presidential candidate, but Banerjee herself made public statements that she would have preferred to support Draupadi Murmu’s candidature if known earlier. The party also did not allow Sinha to campaign in Bengal”
Parties can make mistakes. But a party run on ego when it is a guest in the state and does not make the host leaders the nerve center of their strategy and growth is bound to lose the trust of their tallest local leaders.
