TMC will go solo in 2022 Goa Polls: Abhishek Banerjee on tie-up speculations with AAP

When specifically asked by India Blooms on whether the TMC will join hands with Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Banerjee said, "In Goa, Trinamool will fight it out alone. I hope that puts every speculation to rest."

Banerjee said this after welcoming former Goa Chief Minister and ex-Congress MLA, Luizinho Faleiro, to the TMC, kick starting his Goa campaign.

Along with Faleiro, nine other Goan leaders including six from Congress joined the TMC in presence of Abhishek Banerjee, Lok Sabha MP Saugata Roy and West Bengal Minister-MLA Subrata Mukherjee.

The newly-joined members had met West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee as well.

Beginning his new stint in the TMC, which is in an expansion mode, Faleiro gave a call for an unification of all Congress offshoots to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ruling the Centre and a majority of the states.

Praising Mamata Banerjee, the Goan leader said, "We need a street fighter like Didi to defeat the BJP."

"The moment has come where all Congresses need to come together to face the BJP government," he said.

The joining comes days after Abhishek Banerjee said his party will plunge into Goa politics, throwing a challenge to his arch-rival BJP, which rules the state.

The TMC has already activated its organisation in Tripura and Assam, which are also governed by the BJP.

Abhishek Banerjee announced his plans to expand his party after the TMC decimated the BJP in bitterly-fought 2021 West Bengal Assembly Elections, where the saffron party threw everything to assume power for the first time.