Former Goa CM Faleiro quits as TMC's Rajya Sabha MP

Trinamool Congress's (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP and former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro has tendered his resignation from the Upper House of Parliament, party sources said on Tuesday.

IMAGE: TMC national vice president and former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro welcomes West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee at Goa Airport, Dabolim, December, 2022. Photograph: ANI Photo

Long sidelined from the party affairs in Goa, Faleiro was being nudged by the TMC leadership to resign from the Rajya Sabha.

The Mamata Banerjee-led party has been upset with Faleiro after he refused to contest the 2022 assembly election from Fatorda against Goa Forward Party's Vijai Sardesai, according to TMC sources.

Trinamool said it will announce a new candidate for the RS seat vacated by Falerio.

"We wish him good health and happiness. The party had asked him to resign from his Rajya Sabha seat, and it is good that he abided by the party's decision," TMC MP Santanu Sen told PTI.

He said the party will announce a new candidate for the seat as and when the election is notified.

To a query why he was asked to resign, Sen refused to comment, saying it was an "internal matter of the party".

According to TMC sources, the party leadership had asked Falerio to resign three months back but he had sought time.

"When he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha ticket, he was expected to deliver for the party in Goa. He failed to do that, so he was asked to resign," a TMC leader said on condition of anonymity.

The development comes a day after the Election Commission withdrew the national party status of the TMC, along with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).

After its emphatic victory in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections, the TMC, in its attempt to expand its national footprint, began groundwork in Goa but despite its high-decibel campaign in the coastal state, alliance with a local outfit and induction of several leaders from rival camps, the party drew a blank in the 40-member assembly in polls last year, bagging only 5.21 per cent of the votes polled.

When the TMC made a foray into the coastal state, it had asked Rajya Sabha MP Arpita Ghosh, who had a term till 2026, to quit and sent Faleiro to the Upper House in 2021.