Congress MLA in Goa resigns, leaves party tottering ahead of polls

Congress MLA in Goa’s Curtorim Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco has resigned from the party and the state Assembly, causing another huge blow to the party a few months ahead of the 2022 Goa Assembly elections.

Aleixo Reginaldo, who was the working president of the party’s Goa unit, was named in the first list of candidates by the Congress leadership for the upcoming polls, but he seems to have refused to play ball.

With this, the Congress’s strength in the 40-member state Assembly has reduced to 2. Digambar Kamat and Pratapsingh Rane are the only MLAs left in the party in the Assembly.

Also read: BJP MLA accuses Goa PWD minister of selling engineer posts for ₹25 to ₹30 lakhs

As per some reports, Aleixo Reginaldo is likely to join the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee, which is strongly campaigning in Goa.

A few days back, former Goa chief minister Ravi Naik too had resigned as Congress MLA. So did another former CM, Luizinho Faleiro, who then joined the Trinamool Congress.

The Congress had won 17 of the 40 seats in the Assembly in the 2017 elections, but failed to attain power despite being the single largest party in the House. The BJP, which had bagged 13 seats, sprung a surprise by tying up with some regional parties and independents to form government in the state.