Looking at the polls cape in the State with a more realistic lens, the Goa Trinamool Congress (TMC) is now looking to be a kingmaker along with its alliance partner MGP instead of eyeing to be the king. “Between MGP and us, we will get enough votes that would matter in government formation,” said Lok Sabha MP of TMC and Goa State in-charge Mahua Moitra while speaking on Herald TV’s program ‘Goa wants to know’.
Skepticism around TMC
When TMC entered Goa, everybody asked why was the party entering when elections were due in three months. “As a political party we have to answer such questions we are a national party and our strength has been Bengal, especially in Goa which has always seen a very binary political landscape involving Congress and BJP,” Moitra said.
“But there are two things that I would like to point out. First is the reason why we didn’t come to Goa earlier because we were fighting for in Bengal. Had we not won Bengal the way we did and come in, we would have not been able to put serious efforts here,” she said.
The second reason is the failure of Congress to form a government in 2017 despite getting 17 seats.
“In 2017 the Congress had 17 seats yet they couldn’t form the Government with few other MLAs. Had they done it there wouldn’t have been any need for us to come here. Even now if you see, our fight is not with Congress. We want to throw BJP out. In this situation, it is important for non-Congress parties who are part of the fight against BJP are also there to give options to the people,” she said.
MGP alliance out of conviction or need?
“In politics conviction and need both are required. As far as we are concerned, the conviction is that people who were initially allies of BJP and have now realised that BJP is not the way to go forward. We give those parties the room to be part of an anti-BJP alliance,” Moitra said.
“There is also a necessity. That is why we are contesting polls through seat sharing. We have given 13 seats to our alliance partner as in those seats they are fighting the BJP 1:1. That is the best way to defeat BJP because they have a better chance there than us,” she said.
On minorities
According to the TMC MP, “BJP continues to spread lies till one starts believing it as true. In Bengal we won 213 seats of more than 50% of the seats were won by non-minority (though I personally don’t like the word minority) candidates, without it we wouldn’t have got a majority in the Assembly. Everybody knows what TMC stands for,” she said.
“Today the minority community is striving for its survival. If this reality does not strike now, it never will,” the firebrand TMC leader said.
Poaching established MLAs:
She was asked, TMC was supposed to build itself from the scratch by encouraging fresh faces. But the party has landed up taking MLAs from other parties who are likely to fetch votes.
She said, “We are committed to giving a chance to fresh faces and youngsters. But it is not possible to win elections within just three months of coming here. So, we needed established candidates,” she said. “Also, the constituencies in Goa are very small. It is possible that by tweaking 4000 votes one can win by a margin of 8,000 to 10,000 votes. This is the reality of Goa,” she added.
Twitter war with Congress:
“Tweets don’t make or break votes. It does not matter who says what to whom on Twitter. The most important thing is we both committed to getting the BJP out? If a mix of votes outside the BJP goes into the formation of an alternative block, we would be happy with that. The point is, we are going to form a block that is going to be very vital to government formation. Between MGP and us, we will get enough seats that would matter in the government formation. This is more important,” she informed.
On announcing a CM face
We are pragmatic. Yes, there was a thought of announcing the CM face earlier but we are not going ahead with it. We are focusing on the as many seats the TMC MGP alliance can get to be able to form a non-BJP block which will form a government in Goa.
