Churchill Alemao all set to join Mamata Banerjee’s TMC after Diwali

PANAJI: Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao is all set to join Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress party (AITC or TMC) soon after Diwali, sources close to the Varca strongman claim.

Alemao is currently with Sharad Pawar’s NCP, which is considering a tie-up with the Congress. However, the Grand Old Party is in no haste to cement an alliance with other parties in the coastal state, a fact that is annoying to one and many, including an impatient Churchill who is loosing his cool with the Congress.

In a veiled warning to his party, he told NCP leaders, including his party State President in Goa that he would wait for ten days for an alliance with the Congress to fructify or else would take his own decisions with regards to the upcoming Assembly polls in 2022.

As a matter of fact, Alemao and the TMC are at an advanced level of discussion and the TMC has offered Alemao two tickets or seats of his choosing, with one being Benaulim. It’s just the nitty-gritty that has to be worked out and Alemao has to sign on the dotted line.

Speaking to the Times of India last month, Alemao said: “I haven’t taken a decision yet because I don’t want to ditch my party leaders, Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel. If they take any decision concerning me then I will give a thought to it,” Alemao, the lone NCP legislator in the state, was quoted by TOI, as speaking to reporters.

Alemao said that as Pawar and other NCP leaders hadn’t hurt him so far, he has been slow in taking a decision. “Had they hurt me, I would have taken a decision instantly like how (Congress Navelim MLA) Luizinho Faleiro did,” Alemao claimed.

Alemao had contested the Lok Sabha elections on a TMC ticket in 2014 and has already been associated with the party. In 2017, he joined the NCP to win the Benaulim seat at the Assembly polls.