Goa Forward Party (GFP) working president Kiran Kandolkar quit the party on Saturday in protest against a possible alliance with the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls and joined the Trinamool Congress. He was welcomed in TMC by the party MP Mahua Moitra and TMC national vice president Luizinho Faleiro.
Kandolkar, a former BJP MLA, had joined GFP in 2020. Incidentally, he was declared the GFP candidate from the Aldona seat for the Assembly polls scheduled early next year.
"But the Congress has already started campaigning there. I feel Congress will ditch the Vijai Sardesai-led party at the last minute. I feel that parties like Congress and AAP are not serious about defeating BJP," he told reporters.
Kandolkar said the Mamata Banerjee -led party is only capable of defeating the BJP in the next year's polls.
"Rahul Gandhi or Arvind Kejriwal can't defeat Narendra Modi. But Mamata Banerjee has shown in West Bengal that she can fight back and hand BJP a drubbing,” he added.
GFP chief Vijai Sardesai said Kandolkar's exit was shocking.
"I welcome a recent statement by AICC Goa desk incharge Dinesh Gundu Rao on an alliance. I promise Goans that we will unitedly work to eradicate the virus of BJP that is affecting Goa now,” he said.
Rao had recently announced that Congress was in talks with the GFP and other political parties, including NCP and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, for a tie-up for polls.
Sardesai said Kandolkar must have left the party because he had doubts whether he would get a ticket after a possible alliance with Congress for himself and his wife.
Downplaying the development, Sardesai said such migration is bound to happen as a new party (TMC) has come to Goa.
In the 2017 Goa Assembly polls, the Congress had won the highest 17 seats in the 40-member House restricting the BJP at 13. However, the BJP allied with regional parties- GFP and MGP- to form a government under the late Manohar Parrikar. The GFP has three MLAs in the House.
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