Team Herald
PANJIM: In an attempt to control poaching of its MLAs by rival political parties, All India Congress Committee (AICC) Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has taken things into his hand after senior AICC General Secretary and Goa desk-in-charge Digvijay Singh failed to quell the growing rebellion.
Gandhi has called seven Congress MLAs, led by Leader of the Opposition Pratapsingh Rane, for an election review meeting in Delhi on Thursday. Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho, who has announced he will contest on a BJP ticket in the 2017 elections, has been kept out by the party high command.
Congress Cumbarjua MLA Pandurang Madkaikar, who is on the verge of joining the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), is uncertain about attending the meeting. “I have got the intimation of the meeting but I am yet to decide on it,” Madkaikar told Herald.
Madkaikar had recently openly spoken against the party leadership while also boycotting party meetings. He had even stated that he would quit the party if the old guard, including five ex-chief ministers, were given tickets again.
The old guard includes Pratapsingh Rane, Luizinho Faleiro, Francisco Sardinha, Ravi Naik, Digambar Kamat, Ramakant Khalap and Subhash Shirodkar, who have been in the forefront on the party organisation in the recent past. Kamat and Rane are sitting MLAs while Faleiro is the State unit President.
With the Assembly elections approaching, there is a clear divide within the Congress Party, with the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) and Congress Legislative Party (CLP) having a difference of opinion on an alliance.
MLAs, including Kamat, Vishwajit Rane and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, have teamed up against the PCC and have decided to put up their demands before Gandhi. “We are going to make it clear that Congress cannot fight the elections alone. It has to form an alliance,” Lourenco said adding, “Also young and new faces need to be promoted and encouraged for the 2017 elections.”
The party has stated that 50 percent of the candidates in the 2017 elections would be new faces. Singh said that apart from the current sitting MLAs, the party will scout for new faces in the other 30 constituencies.
