'TMC Not Secular, Worse Than BJP': Months After Joining, Ex-Goa MLA Quits Party

Lavoo Mamledar resigned from the Mamata Banerjee-led party, claiming that it was playing communal politics.

Merely three months after he joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC), former Goa MLA Lavoo Mamledar on Friday, 24 December resigned from the Mamata Banerjee-led party, claiming that it was making false promises and playing communal politics.

(Photo: Twitter/Lavoo Mamledar)

Merely three months after he joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC), former Goa MLA Lavoo Mamledar on Friday, 24 December resigned from the Mamata Banerjee-led party, claiming that it was making false promises and playing communal politics.

"I was under the impression that TMC is a very secular party. But from whatever I have noticed in the last 15-20 days, I came to know that it is worse than the BJP," Mamledar was quoted as saying by news agency PTI on Thursday.

In a resignation letter addressed to Banerjee, Mamledar wrote:

"We had thought that AITC was a secular party but with deep regret we would like to bring to your notice that AITC has tried to divide Goans on the basis of religion... AITC move to polarise Hindu votes towards MGP and Catholic votes towards AITC is purely communal in nature."

Former Goa MLA Lavoo Mamledar

"We do not want to continue with a party which is trying to divide Goans. We will not allow AITC and the company managing AITC Goa to break the secular fabric of the state and we shall protect it,” Mamledar said in the letter.

The former MLA from Ponda had joined the All India Trinamool Congress in September, and his resignation comes merely months before Goa goes to polls in February 2022.

Mamledar Accused Trinamool Congress of 'Fooling Goans'

“The company you have hired for your campaign in Goa is fooling Goans and they have not understood the pulse of Goa," Mamledar notes in his resignation letter.

The former TMC leader also lashed out against the party's promise of Rs 5,000 a month to the female head of every household under the Griha Laxmi Scheme if voted to power.

Suggesting that the party merely intended to collect data of women in the name of the scheme, Mamledar said, "When AITC government has failed to uplift women in West Bengal, we don't think it would do any good to our Goan mothers and sisters."

He also indicated that the promise made under the scheme was not possible to deliver.