Goa independent MLA extends support to TMC ahead of 2022 Assembly polls

Sitting independent MLA from Goa, Prasad Gaonkar, on Wednesday extended formal support to the Trinamool Congress party, even as his brother and some supporters officially joined the Mamata Banerjee-led outfit.

Trinamool Congress sources said that Gaonkar would be formally joining the party soon after the culmination of the last session of the state legislative assembly which is scheduled to take place later this month.

"The Congress should have capitalised on the anger against the BJP, but they have been unable to do so. So, I am supporting TMC," Gaonkar said.

"Only Mamata didi can change the regime of Modi. The manner in which she handled the Bengal election and kept BJP at bay was phenomenal. She is the woman who carried out the miracle. She showed her worth," Gaonkar also said.

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Incidentally, Prasad's brother Sandesh had joined the Congress party in July this year, before the latter on Wednesday hopped over to join the TMC. Prasad Gaonkar was also tipped to join the Congress and contest the state assembly polls from the Sanguem assembly constituency in South Goa district on a Congress ticket.

Gaonkar is the second legislator associated with the TMC, with the first being former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro, who joined the party last month immediately after resigning as MLA.

A re-energised TMC is keen on making a splash in the upcoming state assembly polls after facing humiliating defeats in the 2012 assembly polls and the 2014 general elections in the coastal state.

According to party sources, the TMC is expected to rope in yet another former Chief Minister into its ranks, even as a regional party is in talks with the West Bengal-based party leaders to discuss the possibility of a merger of the regional outfit into the TMC before the state goes to polls in early 2022.

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