Trinamool communal, trying to divide Goa: Ex-MLA quits in 3 months

Nearly three months after joining the Trinamool Congress (TMC), former Goa legislator Lavoo Mamledar on Friday (December 24) resigned from Mamata Banerjee’s party, accusing it of being communal and trying to create a divide between Hindus and Christians for votes ahead of the assembly election.

The former Ponda MLA had joined the TMC in September. He was among the first few local leaders in the state to join the party, which has decided to contest all 40 seats.

He said the TMC was collecting the data of people in the name of rolling out a welfare scheme for women if it was voted to power.

“I had joined the TMC because I was fully impressed with Mamata Banerjee-led party’s performance in West Bengal [assembly election],” he said.

“I was under the impression that TMC is a very secular party. But from whatever I have noticed in the last 15-20 days, I came to know that it is worse than the BJP.”

The TMC has forged a pre-poll alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, of which Mamlatdar was an MLA between 2012 and 2017.

He alleged that the TMC was trying to divide Hindu and Christian votes.

“As part of their pre-poll alliance, they want that the Christian votes should go to the TMC and Hindu votes to the MGP… The TMC is a communal party, which is trying to disturb the secular fabric,” he said.

He accused the TMC of trying to collect the data of people in the name of its Griha Laxmi scheme.

“We have found that under its Laxmi Bhandar scheme introduced in West Bengal, only ₹500 are given, while here they are promising ₹5,000 to women, which is next to impossible. The promise of the scheme is entirely to collect data from Goa,” he said.