Congress has played a fresh hand in appointments to the top positions in the party and all indications are that it has the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in mind. It has retained the district and community balance that it is always known to do, but this time it has also brought in an industry balance of sorts. In Michael Lobo as Leader of the Opposition it has a Catholic from North with business interests in tourism. In Amit Patkar as president of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee it has a Hindu from South Goa with business interests in mining. The other appointments of first-time MLA Sankalp Amonkar as deputy leader of the party in the Assembly and another debutant MLA Yuri Alemao as working president of the organisation, and yet another novice MLA Carlos Alvares Ferreira as chief whip catapults the youth brigade to positions of power and very effectively keeps the seniors out of any important role in the organisation or the legislature wing.
With this reworking of positions, Congress is no longer the party of grandfathers, a term that has often been used in the past as it had given all important posts to senior leaders. In the revamp, Digambar Kamat, who was a frontrunner for the CLP chief position, has been placated with a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee position. Effectively, the Congress high command has tied up all the loose ends and it quite suddenly does not look as if the decision on appointments, that took a long time to come, were made without much thinking. The message going out to the party members is that here is the change asked for, now bring in the results.
After the debacle at the recent elections the party was looking for a change at the top and that has now been effected by the party high command which was given the responsibility after the legislature wing abdicated its duty of electing its own leader and after State unit president resigned. Whether the new leadership will be able to revive the party and make the desired changes in the party functioning are questions that will be answered in time. The selected individuals have demonstrated in the recent past, especially in the Assembly elections, that they have a fire in them and are not pushovers in politics. They will have to infuse the same fire in the rank and file.
The president and working president may be very new names in political circles, dwarfed in experience by the seniors in the party who are still around and who will have to guide the youngsters and not consider them as challengers or competitors. This is a realisation that has to dawn upon the long-time Congress politicians, without which the party will not emerge from the tangle it has got knotted up in. If the fortunes of the party are now on the shoulders of the new leadership, it is also for the stalwarts to work not just for themselves but for the party. It is the least that is expected from those who have benefitted from the party for so long.
The big question for Congress now is whether the new leadership can turn around the fortunes of the party and bring it back as a strong force in Goan politics. The first test will be the panchayat elections due in June this year, which though not fought on party lines, lays the groundwork for all the other elections. After the losses in Zilla panchayat and municipal council elections in the last 15 months, it is the results of these that will determine whether the party still holds on to its vote share. The party has little time at its disposal, it has to hit the ground right away.