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Updated October 22nd, 2021 at 12:49 IST

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to visit Goa from October 28 as TMC steps up poll campaign

In an important development ahead of the Assembly polls due early next year, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee will visit the state from October 28 onwards

Reported by: Akhil Oka
Mamata Banerjee, Goa
IMAGE: ANI/PTI | Image:self
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In an important development ahead of the Assembly polls due early next year, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee will visit the state on Thursday, October 28. This comes as TMC has stepped up its election campaign after deciding to field its candidates on all 40 seats in Goa. In the last few weeks, many posters featuring the TMC supremo's photo and the slogan 'Gonychi Navi Sakal' (Goa's new dawn) have been put across the state. 

On September 29, former Goa CM Luizinho Faleiro joined Mamata Banerjee-led party along with ex-MGP MLA Lavoo Mamledar, Congress general secretaries Yatish Naik and Vijay Poi, Congress Secretaries Mario Pinto De Santana and Anand Naik, poet Shivdas Sonu Naik, South Goa Advocates Association president Antonio Monteiro Clovis Da Costa and Rajendra Kakodkar. Subsequently, hundreds of other Congress leaders have joined the party. In another development, Independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar has extended support to TMC. Banerjee is likely to return to WB on November 1. 

TMC's growing pan-India footprint

After a hard-fought election campaign, TMC sprung a surprise by decisively winning the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election by bagging 213 seats whereas BJP could win in only 77 constituencies. Buoyed by its third consecutive victory, TMC is mulling projecting Mamata Banerjee as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Making her national ambitions clear, Banerjee propagated the West Bengal model of governance in her Martyrs' Day rally speech on July 21.

Thereafter, she visited Delhi and met various opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In an attempt to expand its base across the country, TMC has increased its political activities in Tripura and Goa aimed at emerging as an alternative to Congress. However, the party has riled Congress in the process by inducting many of its leaders such as Sushmita Dev and Abhijit Mukherjee.

Incensed by the growing political capital of the Mamata Banerjee-led party, Congress recently accused TMC of indirectly helping BJP by dividing the secular votes. Slamming AAP and TMC in a press briefing on October 3, AICC Goa in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao said, "There are two forces working. One force is the fascist force of BJP which wants to completely control this country, completely keep everything under its command. They are trying to create an authoritarian state using the power of money. The second thing that is happening in Goa, the parties which are operating here to ensure that BJP wins". 

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Published October 22nd, 2021 at 12:49 IST

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