Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Luizinho Faleiro says he is willing to apologize for any wrong the party may have done. Fair enough, there is much that the Congress in Goa has to be sorry for and accept responsibility for. But, what about after the apology? An apology will work only if it is followed up by some act that establishes the penitent’s resolve to change. If the apologies – when they do come as right now it is only an offer to apologize – gain some sympathy for the Congress in Goa, that sympathy needs to be translated into votes, and the votes into victories. Is the Congress in Goa ready to lose its past baggage and tread forward on lighter feet?
Faleiro has been in the political game long enough to know that mere apologies do not win elections. Policies, vision, a strong party organisation win elections. He has just over two years if he wants to turn the Congress in Goa into a fighting unit with a chance of winning the 2017 Assembly polls in the State. After the drubbing the party suffered in the 2012 State Assembly elections and the debacle of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, this will demand a complete overhaul of the party unit. If as Congress party president he aims to win the 2017 polls, he should start the groundwork now, and the first step should be the right one. Going by his statements he may need to relook at the party again.
His admission that the Congress leadership has gone weak but his assertion that the party is strong is flawed, simply because in Goa the leadership and the party are weak. The party can’t really be proud of an organization that appears to be little other than a loose amalgamation of persons with personal ambitions who are supported by their sidekicks.
Currently the Congress in Goa is an army of battalions each with its own lieutenant colonel and no general to lead all the battalions in battle. Each constituency has its party workers that are affiliated to their local ‘leader’, the only one they listen to. These are persons who at the first sign of any attack on their personal citadels are ready to shift their allegiances to the other side. They have done it in the past and will probably do it again. That is the biggest weakness of the party in Goa – its inability to accept the leadership of any one person and go forward with that person.
The party has also grown unwieldy, too cumbersome an organization to be sprightly on its feet and move forward. Faleiro has to change this. He was brought in to strengthen it and this is where he should focus his energies – on revamping the organization from the grassroots level up to the top, of making it one cohesive unit. He should ensure that workers are loyal to the party, not to an individual. His first challenge in this area will be convincing Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate not to quit the party and his membership of the Legislative Assembly to contest as an Independent from Panjim. Monserrate’s move will not only reduce the Congress numbers in the Assembly, but further weaken the party organization in St Cruz and Panjim constituencies.
Today, Congress in Goa has been effectively reduced to the ranks of a Regional Party of little consequence. It doesn’t resemble the party that held sway over Goan politics since 1980 to 2012 with brief intervals. The stalwarts of the 1980s are still around, but there are many bright young minds waiting in the wings for the opportunity to step on the electoral stage. Another of Faleiro’s early tasks should be to get the old guard and the young Turks in the party, especially those who do not see eye-to-eye, to sit together across the table and talk to and with each other. The old will bring to the table their experience, the young will pour out their new ideas and vision. It will then be his task to take all these inputs, select the best and transform them into a plan for 2017. The date is not too far away and the planning for it cannot start too early.
