Senior Goa Congress leader Churchill Alemao resigns

March 22, 2014 03:32 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 06:24 pm IST - PANAJI

Senior Congress leader Churchill Alemao on Saturday finally resigned from the Congress party over its refusal to withdraw the candidature of Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco from South Goa in favour of his daughter Valanka Alemao, Goa Youth Congress president.

After finding the Congress unmoved despite his revised deadlines, Mr. Alemao submitted his resignation to the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president John Fernandes on Saturday morning and soon announced that he will contest the South Goa seat as an independent.

The Congress, for the first time in Goa took a firm stand against election-time rebellion and snubbed the South Goa heavyweight politician and sent a strong signal announcing that the doors of the party will not be opened for him after the election.

Responding to Mr. Alemao’s parting comments over his third exit from the Congress that “Congress is a big ocean where people can come and go,” an indignant Mr. Fernandes snapped, “Congress is an ocean for

people with ideas and ethos and not for people with personal agendas and blackmailers.”

Declining to accept that Mr. Alemoa’s exit from the Congress and contesting as an independent would adversely affect Congress candidates’ chances in South Goa's Catholic-dominated Congress bastion, GPCC president ruled out any damage to the party.

Expressing great relief over the end of Alemao drama, Mr. Fernandes told presspersons at the Congress house on Saturday, “We have to put and end to this political circus.”

Recalling the resounding defeat of four members of the Alemao family in 2012 State Assembly elections including Churchill Alemao, Mr. Fernandes said, “Two years back we have seen people’s support to him

and his family, people have shown them their place. People have made clear that they will not permit a ‘family Raj’ in Goa. Still they want to continue their family hegemony.”

Describing Mr. Alemao as a “dummy candidate being fielded by BJP with a hope to divide secular votes”, Mr. Fernandes said people like Mr. Alemao were acting this way perhaps because the government in power

was blackmailing them with their past cases of corruption and scams.

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