Goa Cong spokesman expelled for anti-party statements

The Congress has expelled its Goa spokesman Trajano D'Mello for "maligning" the party's image by making "anti-party statements", days after he demanded sacking of the state unit president Luizinho Faleiro for failing to forge a pre-poll alliance with the Goa Forward Party (GFP).
The executive committee of the party has unanimously passed a resolution expelling D'Mello from primary membership of the Congress for the period of six years.
"The executive committee took strong notice and cognisance of the anti-party utterances, activities and acts of Trajano D'Mello for his acts of maligning the GPCC (Goa Pradesh Congress Committee) and damaging dignity of the party," GPCC vice-president M K Shaikh said in a statement released here today.

It said that D'Mello has "maligned" the party's image "through his motivated, unfounded and baseless statements and acts in the run-up to the Goa Assembly elections".
"The executive committee has unanimously observed that the said acts constituted gross indiscipline which necessitated strict disciplinary action in the nature of his expulsion from the primary membership of the party," Shaikh stated.
D'Mello on Monday said that the state leadership of the party was in sync with the BJP leadership.
Seizing the AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh's recent tweets, wherein he conceded the "mistake" of not tying up with the GFP before polls, D'Mello said, "In this scenario, the state Congress president (Faleiro) should step down, failing which he should be sacked. As long as he continues to head the state unit, it will be difficult for the Congress to come back to power in the state".

The GFP, led by Vijai Sardesai, is now one of the alliance partners of the ruling BJP under chief minister Manohar Parrikar.