Team News Riveting
Panaji, December 13
Days after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar contested Mamata Banerjee’s idea of opposition alliance without Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC) “tempted” its only MLA Alemao to join the party.
Churchill Braz Alemao, a former Chief Minister and former MP of the 14th Lok Sabha, also merged NCP’s legislative unit with that of the TMC. He is the present MLA of Benaulim constituency in the state of Goa.
Political observers saw the development as Mamata Banerjee’s revenge from the NCP as its chief Sharad Pawar had made it clear to Mamata Banerjee that no Opposition coalition could be possible without the Congress.
Letters were submitted by TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien as well as Churchill Alemao informing Goa Speaker Rajesh Patnekar (BJP) about the sole NCP legislator’s decision to merge the legislative unit with the TMC.
“I am the only member of the Nationalist Congress Party in the Goa Assembly. I thus constitute no less than two-thirds of the members of the legislative group of NCP in the Goa Legislative Assembly,” Alemao wrote in his letter to the Speaker.
The resolution deciding the merger was passed on December 9.
