GOA TMC AT INTERNATIONAL CENTRE GOA: All the flags now look more or less alike! Above are to be seen now Goa Trinamool leader Luizinho Faleiro, Derek O’Brien and sitting MLA of Sanguem Prasad Gaonkar, alongside is his brother Sandesh Gaonkar who has immediately joioned the Goa TMC with Mamata-didi ‘s Maa-Mati-Manush sash around his shoulders. The Goa TMC has discovered the ICG as a cool adda for is meetings!

GOA’S growing bhaile or outsider political conscience is growing albeit slowly! After former veteran Luizino Faleiro shook the dust of Sonia Gandhi’s Congress in favour of Goddess of Street-Fighters and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, it is now clear that the Goa Trinamool Congress is here to woo Goans big time. Not so much out of concern for Goa and Goans, but to ensure that Mamata-didi is the next prime minister of India! Of course, somewhere there are small victories lined up for Goa — and Goans who want to be the next chief minister of Goa regardless of which party gives them a ticket!
All this was clear as crystal at the International Centre of Goa at a press conference called by the by now wellknown political strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC team on Wednesday, Oct 13, 2021. The ICG has become the I-PAC’s new adda. The funny part is that although Prashant Kishor was in town he skipped the media at large, preferring to give only private audiences with select media people. By and large it is TMC leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien and former Congress heavyweight Luizinho Faleiro who are orchestrating the Goa Trinamool Congress’ assumed victory in Goa at the coming up Legislative Assembly elections in February 2022 (that is if all goes well).
The genial and polite Derek O’Brien is the chief whip or so to speak, the high command on the spot, together with Prashant Kishore in the backdrop executing the Goa Trinamool Congress’ campaign in Goa. This time around it was the turn of disgruntled farming family represented by Sanguem sitting MLA Prasad Gaonkar and his brother Sandesh Sashikant Gaonkar to officially offer support and also to join the Goa Trinamool Congress. Both are apparently unhappy with the BJP government’s attitude towards agriculture in Sanguem constituency where both are from a farming family with several lakh sq mts of farming land to their name.
The Goa Trinamool’s list is growing bit by bit after the giant leap of 200 Goans who reportedly joined the old new “outsider” party in Benaulim at a recent function. On Wednesday’s press conference Gaonkar endorsed his perception of Mamta-didi as someone who can perform “chamatkar” or magic to transform Goa – and more, she is also the right person to take on the might of the two big time BJP honchos in Delhi!
Hasn’t Mamata-didi proved this several times in the recent victories she has reaped in West Bengal? If anyone can shove the BJP aside with a hefty swing in Goa and then in Delhi in the Parliamentary elections on their way Mamta-didi of West Bengal can do it! She is the right person into Narendra Modi’s footwear (which not incidentally are exclusively branded unlike Mamata-didi’s humble chappal or so to speak).
The question arises in the frenetic political scene brewing up in the run up to the next LA elections in Goa: Will enough Goans accept any Goan face the Goa Trinamool Congress offers as chief minister? At ground level it is the Prashant Kishor’s team which is working frenetically to pave the ground for a Mamata-didi win in Goa.
Nobody is sure yet if the Goa Trinamool Congrass chief ministerial face will be familiar Luizino Faleiro – or how many Goans will vote for him? Although in Goa a small number of voters can easily be paid off for a victory. A victory of default if you like (in this country we are beginning to specialize in such victories which are more by hook or crook). Just as the last electoral victory in Goa was by default, didn’t the BJP “steal” away the bona fide Congress victory right under the noses of chief claimants for chief minister’s seat Luizinho Faleiro and Digambar Kamat post-2017 elections? Do Goans of both the niz Goenkar and migrant variety have short memories – the first love to analyse, criticise and keep debating while the second lot will deliver the goods for mu-manga gift be it bicycles or scooters or a roof over the head with Aadhar card, ration card, voting card, etcetera, laid on.
The larger picture is ache din only for politicians! Master strategists as well as administrative politicians know that the voters are easier to buy off at ridiculously small prizes, it’s the key politicians who are more difficult to buy. Who will pay the highest amount to defect? Place your bets, my dears!
On this note it is avjo, poite verem, selamat dating, au revoir, arrivedecci and vachun yetta here for now.

— Mme Butterfly