TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2024
Some of Rahul Gandhi’s more recent visits to Goa have been undertaken to buy luxury puppies. But the luxury of not deciding on a candidate with just over 30 days left for a Lok Sabha election is something neither he nor the Congress can afford. This is a betrayal of the people who have a right to have opposing candidates of different parties to allow them to make a choice.
Everyone is baffled at the delay in announcing candidates and the omnipresence of a destructive conductor on the Congress bus, is being felt.
The Congress bus is so rickety that it is almost grounded. But the conductor in the Goa Congress, who is an expert at selling tickets seems to be doing all the “chamchagiri” ( to quote Advocate Radharao Gracias) he can to print a ticket for himself, especially for the South Goa seat.
And if that happens, the apprehensions raised by people and social activists that deals are being cracked but the people’s confidence is lost, will be confirmed.
In any case, this tribe of conductors prints and sells tickets everywhere. In real political terms, the absolute, astonishing and unpardonable delay in announcing candidates for North and South Goa, after the names were finalised can, in the minds of the people, only point at one thing- the deliberate withholding (actually hoarding) of the tickets to pulls and pressures, which Rahul Gandhi, who is not the party President but still is the main player, is incapable of sorting. Or shall we say, unwilling to sort?
Where are the leaders and where is the leadership?
Pet stooges have been nurtured to feed off the crumbs of the family high command. This family high command supersedes the party high command.
And then the stooges with no contribution to the party except playing conductor, remain absent for 1800 days of a term of 1825 days (a year of the Assembly and Lok Sabha ) and turn up for the last 25 to 30 days before the term ends and the next election is due, and say they want to contest.
They are like moths who appear out of nowhere when there is a flame.
Will Congress give a ticket to an evergreen loser and sideline an evergreen winner?
In South Goa, even the thought, leave alone the logic of dropping a sitting MP who has won every time, and buckling to the pressure of someone who has lost every time, does stink of a conspiracy and a big deal, as expressed by sections of grassroots leaders like a former Sarpanch of Raia.
Results do not matter to dealmakers, only good deals do
And here deal makers are hardly bothered about public reaction and a backlash. Because a deal is more lucrative than votes. Here the result does not matter to the dealmaker. Only the deal does.
Many Congress people in Goa feel enough is enough and may even quit if the conductor gets a ticket
There is frustration building up in the party. Those who are in the party organisation are irritated and betrayed by the “conductor” factor which is playing volleyball with the party.
Here, the murmurs are getting louder that key people may resign if the conductor bypasses everyone and prints a ticket for himself.
There is hardly any party left, just individuals with their interests
No frontal organisations are taking the lead, there is no committee, even to draft a manifesto and present it before the people. Apart from not having a candidate, the party has not offered solutions to people’s unique needs in different areas and resolved their problems. What will they go to the people with?
The Congress ‘family command’ to which the High Command with ‘spine problems’, reports to need to get this.
Making the Congress a rag-tag so-called team of individuals and giving them a party tag will be an absolute surrender to the ruling party. And a party cannot be run by ‘chamchas’ or friends of PAs, of the family command.
It is no less than a walkover. Is this being done due to sheer incompetence or worse, a planned betrayal, the people will soon know.
