For the largest but politically headless party in Goa, the Congress cannot waste any more time in getting its organisational infrastructure in place and revamp its entire team to take the party to 2019, including getting a go getter leader who can hold the party together.
Its decision to ask for more time to prepare the organisational electoral rolls, and form its committees at the booth, district and state level shows its current state of preparedness.
The fact that these committees have not been formed is indicative of a very tardy organisational push. The organisational elections, including the polls to pick the next State unit president, were supposed to have been held between September 16 and October 15.
The grand excuse that has been purported is party was busy with the by-polls. If the entire state unit comes to a standstill because of two by-elections, of which one was handled completely by Ravi Naik for his son, then the Congress organisation has a lot to worry about. The truth is that an overall revival of the organisation, the selection of committees at the booth, district and finally at the state, is a time consuming and painstaking exercise. And except for the period when Luizinho Faleiro, as GPCC chief, made an effort to revive committees at most of the block levels, a sweeping organisational revival which would touch every unit at every level in the state, has been a lingering hope. Meanwhile, there has been no effort to inject that hope with grass-root activity.
The new GPCC president Shantaram Naik has to be accountable, for not managing to get a poll process in place because of by-elections. The role of the GPCC in the Valpoi by-elections was almost negligible. Ponda MLA and former Chief Minister Ravi Naik took over the campaign to get his son elected. One of his sons Ritesh camped in Usgao while senior Naik and candidate Roy Naik traversed the constituency. The involvement of the Congress party was cosmetic, if at all. In Panjim, most of the party MLAs devoted some time to show solidarity and support, to Girish Chodankar but that should not have taken away any time of the organisational machinery (if there was one) at the booth level, at least in the other 38 constituencies.
The reason why the failure to gear up its organisation when it is so required to infuse fresh blood and energy into the party, assumes significance is because of two factors. Firstly, the Congress still has a mandate. With 16 MLAs it can and should be a serious player in State politics both within and outside the Assembly. This mandate cannot just be protected by mere numbers but a constant infusion of energy from the grassroots organisation to take local as well as State issues to their logical conclusion. Secondly, it offers hope, still, to those who backed the Congress to a state when it was on the threshold of coming to power in Goa. A continued period of organisational inaction may diminish the hope to levels from which the party may not be able to resurrect itself, if there are early elections called in 2019, along with the Lok Sabha elections.
It is for these reasons that the GPCC leadership has done a great disservice to itself by displaying lethargy in getting its act together for the much needed revival of its organisation.
