Some youth Congressmen may be suspended
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Some Goa Youth Congress office bearers are likely to be suspended for anti-party activities and state Youth Congress chief Valanka Alemao may be asked to campaign in Goa.
Utkarasha Rupawate, nationally deputed in-charge for Goa, who is here to oversee GPYC campaigning for the main party, has informed the youth Congress committee about the goings-on in Goa.
GPCC Chief John Fernandes has also requested the high command to instruct Valanka Alemao to campaign for the party in Goa rather than touring other states.
“I have been receiving complaints that the two frontal organisations are involved in anti party activities. Accordingly, I have conveyed it to General Secretary in-charge of Youth Congress Suraj Hegde,” he told Herald.
Congress sources also said that the party headquarters in New Delhi has been briefed about complaints the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee has received against some sections of two frontal units in Goa. Apparently they are campaigning against the Congress candidate Aleixo Reginald Lourenco in South Goa.
With Alemao family upset at being denied the Congress South Goa ticket for the 2014 elections, Valanka – although not showing her resentment openly – chose not to campaign for the party in Goa.
“I was told Valanka is campaigning in Delhi. I want her to address Congress meetings here as there is a demand that she campaign for the party in Goa. There are hardly few days left for the elections,” he said.
The party had till date not taken a firm stand against its own critics be it Churchill Alemao who quit the party and joined Trinamool Congress or Francisco Sardinha who had a week ago urged the electorates in the South “to teach Congress a lesson” by voting against them.
The two-time MP was expecting to re-contest but Reginaldo was awarded the ticket. Similarly, Churchill was lobbying with the party to nominate his daughter Valanka and had even opted out from the fray on the condition that his daughter is given the ticket.
Congress General Secretary Pratima Coutinho has meanwhile said that Sardinha is campaigning for the party in North Goa.
Another Congress MLA Mauvin Godinho is also perceived as party’s enemy within the party with spokesman Urfan Mulla claiming that Godinho is playing dirty politics. “He wants the post of CLP leader… He is plying dirty politics…He is a defector who had switched over to PDF in 1989 and returned to Congress,” he said.
