In politics and in election campaigns what is needed are people-oriented policies and assurances, not apologies. The political apology, that in recent years has been coming quite regularly, if beginning to sound like a rehearsed speech that gets sound bites on television and column space on newspapers but in real terms means nothing. It gets the coverage, but it also has its limitations. The frequency with which the Congress in Goa is apologizing for past mistakes could actually turn into an embarrassment for the party in this State. In the past 12 months they have done so three times already and the feeling is that the party is not yet done apologizing.
In November last year Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Faleiro had said that the party has got an ‘inherent strength to go back to the people and tell them that we are sorry for out past mistakes. We have erred in fulfilling certain expectations of the people’. A year later he says that the party committed ‘a mistake by bringing in off shore casinos and we repent for it. But now, we want to change the situation’. In between the party had again apologized, making it three in a year.
Public memory is short, but surely the Congress doesn’t expect the people to have forgotten that it was the party that introduced off shore casinos in Goa. By admitting that they erred in permitting off shore casinos in Goa and claiming that they are repenting bringing them into the State, does the Congress expect the people to vote for the party? Merely repenting is not going to get the party any more votes than those of its supporters. Congress needs to back these statements with visible action that can give the people the confidence that it means business on the issue and on the various other issues affecting Goa.
In December last year Faleiro, just two months after taking charge of the party organization in the State, had organized a major ‘Chintan Shivir’ where professionals and intellectuals had come together with the Goan politicians and drawn a roadmap for the future that focused on the party’s revival in Goa. That roadmap surely did not have apologies and regrets planned. It was a document that had rightly promised that the party would focus on education, industry, public health and infrastructure which are the key drivers of the economy in the State and which are issues that affect the daily lives of the people. But that promised focus on these sectors has not been seen till date. The party continues to remain in the state of hibernation it fell into after the abject loss at the 2012 Assembly elections and appears today far from ready to face the electorate in the coming elections due in 2017.
In the just concluded elections to 11 municipal towns the party did not field any candidates, preferring to stay away from the polls as a mark of protest that the Zilla Parishad polls were held on party lines. There is little justification in this reason and it reads like more of an excuse than a reason to stay away. In the Zilla Parishad polls too the party had stayed away. Yet, after the poll results of both were in – the ZIlla Parshad polls and the Municipal polls – Congress did not waste the opportunity to claim that the results were not an endorsement of the BJP governance in Goa.
But then the results did not give Congress victory either, for the party, taking a well-thought decision on its own did not contest the municipal polls. It was their MLAs, individuals who hold sway in their constituencies that managed to defeat the BJP panels in the municipal polls and in the Zilla Parishad polls. They understood that in order to win a State, one has to win at the grassroots level. A political party is not made up of leaders but of a combination of leaders and workers. If the Congress MLAs and prospective candidates can understand this and work towards creating their base, why can’t the party?
The Congress has for long has been a party of individual leaders and not a cohesive fighting group. That has been seen so often in the past and that has perhaps been its biggest drawback, and the results of the just concluded municipal polls have again proved this. The party has to change that aspect and the time it has to make the change is short. The year 2017 is not too far away and elections will be held in the early months of that year. That gives the political parties in Goa just months in which to plan their strategy for the coming elections.
A party that cannot get its act together cannot go to the people and seek votes. It needs to show the electorate that it exists as a unit and it needs a programme based on which to seek votes. The situation in the party today is almost as if it needs another ‘Chintan Shivir’ to comprehend what it stands for. The off shore casinos need to be sent floating out of the River Mandovi, but there is a lot more that needs to be done in the State.
Congress would do well to recoup it losses sit and begin planning strategy for 2017. Apologies sound good, but in the present case, can this regret by the party be accepted and the party trusted to send the casinos out of River Mandovi? The experience of how the BJP has gone back on its promise to move the casinos should stand as a reminder of what can happen once a party occupies the treasury benches in the Legislative Assembly. The electorate does not need promises disguised as apologies. It needs policies and actions.
(Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Executive Editor, Herald)
