Churchill Alemao kicks off fresh play ahead of Goa polls, this time on TMC side

Five-time MLA and ex-CM, Churchill Alemao, who has switched to Mamata Banerjee-led TMC from Sharad Pawar-led NCP, has won polls on multiple party tickets over the decades; he has varied interests ranging from soccer to real estate, hospitality to fishing trawlers

Five-time Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao. (Source: Facebook/Churchill Alemao)

At the Trinamool Congress (TMC) rally Monday at Benaulim in South Goa during which he was inducted into the TMC in the presence of party supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Churchill Alemao, local NCP MLA, said it was the people of Benaulim, who made him a leader and not any party.

The five-time MLA had reasons to say that: he has won polls over the last several decades as a candidate of different political parties, switching parties at regular intervals without really diminishing his electoral prospects from Benaulim, his home turf.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, Alemao won the Benaulim seat by a margin of 5191 votes as a candidate of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. But three times before that he had won from Benaulim on different party tickets – the Goa People’s Party (GPP) in 1990, the United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) in 1995, and the Congress in 1999. In 2007, Alemao won the neighbouring seat of Navelim as a Congress nominee.

I heartily welcome Mr Churchill Alemao who joined our family of @AITC4Goa in the presence of @MamataOfficial. He is a leader par excellence . I also welcome his daughter Valanka Alemao to the party.#GoenchiNaviSakal pic.twitter.com/cdnAiS67ID

— Luizinho Faleiro (@luizinhofaleiro) December 13, 2021

He has also been an MP from South Goa twice. He was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996 on the UGDP ticket. In 2004, however, he was elected to the Lok Sabha as a Congress nominee.

Alemao was among the founding members of Goa’s two regional parties that are now virtually defunct. He had even served as the Goa Chief Minister for 19 days – from March 27, 1990 to April 14, 1990 – during his stint with the GPP, thereby becoming the first Goa CM from the Catholic Christian community.

In the upcoming Goa Assembly elections, 72-year-old Alemao seems to be all set to contest from Benaulim again – this time as a candidate of the TMC, which has been vigorously trying now, as part of its bid to expand its national footprint, to make inroads into the coastal state where the Assembly elections are barely two months away. This, however, would not be the first time he would contest on the TMC ticket as he had earlier contested as a TMC nominee, albeit unsuccessfully, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Alemao’s stronghold is Salcete taluka of South Goa, where he enjoys the support of locals, mostly its Christian voters. His supporters from there, including village sarpanchs and panch members, attended Mamata Banerjee’s Benaulim rally during which Alemao joined the TMC along with his daughter and political heir Valanka Alemao. He is said to be keen that Valanka contest the upcoming polls from the Navelim constituency that has now fallen vacant after sitting MLA and senior Congress leader Luizinho Faleiro resigned to join the TMC in September.

Although Alemao has claimed that he has “merged” his NCP Legislature Party with the TMC and that being its lone member it would not attract the anti-defection law, the Goa NCP is contesting this “merger”. The Goa Assembly Speaker has also not decided his merger application so far.

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A seasoned politician, Alemao has varied interests ranging from football to real estate, hospitality to fishing trawlers. He has also produced and acted in Konkani dramas. He is the patron of the Churchill Brothers Football Club, whose CEO is Valanka now. He is also the president of the Goa Football Association.

Alemao was born in 1949 in Carmona in the Salcete taluka, when Goa was still under the Portuguese rule. During his nascent years in politics in the 1980s, he took part in the agitation for an official language status for Konkani besides the campaign demanding statehood for Goa.

Alemao has often run into various controversies and legal troubles. He was arrested in connection with the Louis Berger case in August 2015 on charges of criminal conspiracy and graft under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He was Goa’s PWD minister from 2007 to 2012, when officials of the US-based company Louis Berger allegedly paid bribes to win a consultancy bid for water augmentation and a sewerage pipeline project in the state under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He was granted bail in the case after spending 69 days in custody.

His political detractors have often accused Alemao of allegedly engaging in “illegal activities” and using muscle power in his constituency. In 2004, when he was a Congress MP, a sting operation had caught him on camera purportedly demanding a bribe to take up a project under the MPLAD scheme.

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In 1994, Alemao was briefly arrested on smuggling charges. In 2017, the High Court found him not guilty in this case. In 1991, his younger brother, Alvernaz, was stabbed to death allegedly by a customs official, who had reportedly apprehended him while he was smuggling gold.