Picture : Twitter / ANI
Senior Congress Leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram , who is facing the attack from the TMC over the alliance In Goa has hit back at the TMC. He said the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) proposal of a pre-poll alliance for the next month’s Goa Assembly elections was not considered by his party as the Mamata Banerjee-led party “poached” Congress leaders in the state.
His statement comes three days after TMC leader and All India General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee said that if the Congress fails to dislodge the BJP from power in Goa, then Chidambaram, who is Congress’ state election in-charge, should own up the responsibility and resign. Banerjee had also said that the TMC had approached Chidambaram with a formal offer for a pre-poll alliance for the February 14 Goa polls. Earlier TMC party in-charge in Goa, Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra too had slammed Chidambaram over the failure to seal an alliance.
Reacting to the TMC charge, P Chidambaram Told ANI, I don’t enter in verbal exchanges with general secretaries of other parties. I’m a very modest Congress worker, when asked about TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s remark ‘Congress misleading people, Chidambaram should take blame if BJP wins Goa’
Talking to reporters according to a PTI report, Chidambaram said there was a suggestion from the TMC for a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in Goa. “What I can say is that there was a suggestion from the TMC that we should form an alliance (in Goa). (But) Before and after that, certain incidents took place,” the senior Congress leader said.
He alleged that the TMC poached Congress leaders in the coastal state. “They poached Luizinho Faleiro, and even after the proposal of alliance, they poached Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, whose name was in the Congress’s first list of the candidates. They also poached in other constituencies, like Mormugao and Vasco,” he said, without naming any leader from these two seats. The former Union minister said that after these incidents, he did not get any instructions from the top leaders in the Congress over the alliance proposal. When asked about Abhishek Banerjee’s statement against him, Chidambaram said, “I don’t want to engage with the TMC general secretary. I occupy a humble position in the Congress party and I would not like to comment.” He said that Congress leaders had met Shiv Sena and NCP leaders over a pre-poll alliance in Goa. “But there was no meeting point, so we did not take it further,” he said.
