FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Seldom has Goa been on a collective hunt looking for someone, a being or an entity which has been missing for long. While the malaise of confusion and lack of any direction in the Congress has become an internal party pandemic, on a national scale, the virus has hit Goa too. The virus of an ineffective leadership, working in cross purposes; the party and the legislature party pulling in different directions; and then the unpardonable instances of the organisational arm of the party attacking leaders and politicians who are cornering the BJP on issues.
One wonders which side the Congress in Goa is on; for the people of Goa, or the (unintended perhaps) B team of the BJP? As a directionless, spiritless, leaderless and team-less party moving around in empty space, there has been no accountability. And this should start at the top with the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Girish Chodankar, or should we say the President who has resigned and the status of his resignation lies in limbo as he continues in office, with no accountability fixed for abject political failure under his watch.
Loss of two by-elections Shiroda and Mandrem, which the Congress had only recently won
The loss of the North Goa Lok Sabha election by about 80,000 votes
The defection of as many as 10 MLAs leaving the party en masse, with the Congress president left napping. Before this move the then Deputy CM Vijai Sardesai had referred to Congress MLAs as ‘monkeys’. Taking umbrage the then opposition leader Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar quipped, “The language used by Sardesai does not behove a deputy chief minister. No one from Congress is willing to join the BJP anymore. We have our flock intact and we will show our strength during upcoming monsoon session of the assembly.”
Shortly after this statement Kavlekar led a group of 10 MLAs out of the Congress into the waiting arms and charms of the BJP and became the Deputy CM. This could well have been a circus.
While a President does not a party make, people in leadership positions have to either hold themselves accountable or fix accountability. Offering one’s resignation itself does not mean accountability has been fixed. This is something even Rahul Gandhi hasn’t done, but he, at the very least, stepped back. Being visibly away forced the party to, at the very least, make Sonia Gandhi an interim president. In Goa, the person who resigned, purportedly holding himself accountable continues regardless, because no decision has been taken on his resignation. Over a period of time the offer to resign becomes a formality, while the person supposedly holding himself accountable (Girish Chodankar in this case), continues to function exactly as he did.
In his letter of resignation as All India Congress Committee (AICC) president dated July 2, 2019 Rahul Gandhi wrote, “Accountability is critical for the future growth of our party. It is for this reason that I have resigned as Congress president. Rebuilding the party requires hard decisions and a number of people will have to be made accountable for the failure of 2019. It would be unjust to hold others accountable but ignore my own responsibility as president of the party.”
The first step towards accountability is to take yourself out of the system and make it imperative for the party to move ahead. Of course the AICC hasn’t emerged with flying colours either. The working Committee of the AICC was asked by Rahul Gandhi to start a process to find a new president. There was hope that the Congress would indicate that it was willing to initiate a fresh start by bringing in the second rung leadership of the younger, more dynamic lot, and give each, like Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia and RPN Singh, Jitin Prasada, DK Sivakumar, Sharmista Mukherjee, Gaurav Gogoi, Deepender Hooda and others, specific roles. By not doing so, the Congress is letting its flowering plants turn into weeds.
The same template should have been followed by the Goa Congress except that its cupboard is bare. However, even a search within the party would have found some young leaders at the State, district, taluka and booth levels, who could at least make a beginning. Quite the opposite started happening.
The anatomy of the Goa
Congress’ fall
For almost a year, since Girish Chodankar became president, neither the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) nor the two District Congress Committees (DCCs) were constituted. Then when the choice of the Congress candidate for North Goa had to be made, seasoned campaigners like Ramakanth Khalap and Jitendra Deshprabhu applied, but that came a cropper as Chodankar decided to contest, as he did for the Panjim assembly bypoll in 2017, when Manohar Parrikar had to contest to get into the Assembly, losing resoundly in both.
Meanwhile rather than build the party, quick fix solutions like importing leaders to fight targeted political battles became the template, with disastrous consequences like these:
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) Desk in-charge of the Congress Chella Kumar along with a most of Goa Congress leaders went to Babush Monserrate’s (a non-party member) house to confabulate, keeping Luizinho Faleiro in the dark, post which there were remarks that the Congress in Goa would form a government in 24 hours if Faleiro (who won 17 seats for the party out of 40) stepped down as President. This hurt Faleiro. And he went to Delhi to resubmit his resignation to Sonia Gandhi which was already pending with her. “His reluctance to lead the party is rooted in this insult,” said a South Goa District Congress member.
After Parrikar’s passing, the Goa Congress literally imported Babush Monserrate who quit the Goa Forward Party, and was given a Congress ticket to contest, literally in hours. Hardly had the ink on Monserrate’s victory certificate dried when he quit the Congress, took nine other MLAs with him and jumped ship to the BJP, literally leaving Congress voters of Panjim in absolute shock. Has the GPCC even met to discuss this, fix accountability and draw up a plan to avoid such disasters and have a blueprint for the next five years?
One district level Congressman when asked quipped “Arre baba where is the Congress? There is a huge PCC body, but even when the party has to meet on important occasions there are hardly ten people present.”
The malaise spreads further. The Congress is living in denial that its party and legislature wing in Goa, is working at cross purposes. When Independent MLA from Porvorim Rohan Khaunte, who was dropped from the Pramod Sawant cabinet along with Goa Forward ministers, was arrested in early February for threatening the BJP State spokesman Premanand Mahambrey, the entire opposition including the Congress MLAs supported Khaunte and even went to the Governor to protest against his arrest. At the same time the Porvorim Congress Block President, Shankar Phadte attacked Khaunte, on the same issue. It is no rocket science to assume that Phadte had the backing of the PCC chief. Phadte demanded a charge-sheet be filed against Rohan Khaunte going so far as to refer to Khaunte as “a political thug who has become frustrated”.
What can be said of a party where four former Chief Ministers, who are MLAs, are backing an independent MLA against the BJP on one hand, and a block Congress president of the same party addresses a press conference and calls that independent MLA a “thug” and demands a charge-sheet against him. Let’s keep aside the merit or otherwise of the case itself. Fathom the optics of this alone, exposing a clear lack of party strategy. It is almost as if one arm of the party is going out of its way to undermine the other.
This has played out in many levels. Congress stalwart Digambar Kamat fielded a candidate Dorris Texeira for the Margao Municipal Council Chairperson’s post and was backed by BJP councillors against the Goa Forward Party backed candidate Pooja Naik. They did not succeed due to cross voting in favour of Pooja Naik. The irony is this. The Congress is so devalued that even after its former Chief Minister and Margao stalwart Digambar Kamat took BJP’s help in his own council elections, he couldn’t get his candidate elected as Chairperson, in his backyard.
The Congress in Goa has become debased and devalued for all these reasons. And even to address that, if at all, the utmost GPCC will do is hold a press conference, to say all is well. The PCC has been reduced to a PC (Press Conference) Committee. Acceptance of reality has been discarded in favour of shrouding reality, through press statements.
Elected leaders are taking potshots at each other publicly and not reprimanded, probably because it’s tough to reprimand, when it’s likely to be true. For instance Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, speaking of his own party leaders said “Those who are maintaining relations with the BJP are running the Congress”.
The grand old party under whose rule at the Centre, Goa got its Opinion Poll and Statehood, is in tatters. There are three ways the future will be chalked out. The Congress revives by some miracle, by re-hauling its organisation and leadership, but it needs to take other likeminded political forces along, with respect. A new party of present and former Congressmen is formed to tap into the sentiments of many in Goa, who are loyal to the party of old and thirdly a third party or force with regional aspirations and national outlook, emerges to fill the vacuum.
Of all the three possibilities, the first one seems least likely. That is how deep the Congress has sunk.
