A decision that was taken by the Congress in Delhi almost ten days ago, had to wait to be announced formally, due to the murkiness and shadow boxing of the AICC desk in charge. So it’s final. The Congress is contesting in 37 seats barring Porvorim, Panjim and Siolim, with any semblance of an alliance possibility with Goa Forward ending.
This has of course led to a lot of bitterness, name calling and anger on both sides, which will turn out to be much more intense in Velim, Fatorda and Saligao where the Congress and the GF are face to face with each other. But the Congress has managed to come away from this with more talking points in its favour than it would have if it had allowed leaders like Pratapsingh Rane and Digambar Kamat to prevail and give as many as 10 to 13 seats to allies. It has actually managed to come away smelling far better.
It’s on a better road now because it will have to face less questions from its cadre who would have asked what happened to party building and organisation revival of the Congress conceding 25% of its seats in seats where the party organisation has been built up. The party has, at the very least, answered the “honesty of purpose” question, by its final decision, albeit having done that by taking Congressmen and several local prospective candidates and others down a very slippery slope. And while some of the candidate selections, which Herald has openly criticised, stands and will continue to stand, the onus on success and failure is totally in its hands now.
This will now be a test of Luizinho Faleiro’s leadership, because he has finally got a decision he wanted. At the same time, he faces the challenge of winning in Navelim, in the midst of the massive pincer movement against him by the Alemao brothers – Joaquim and Churchill — Vijai Sardesai and Digambar Kamat, through their handpicked spoiler candidate Edwin Cardoso alias Cipru. The BJP (in this case Independent candidate Avertano Furtado, though he’s trying desperately to shake off the BJP tag) is not their enemy here. Joaquim wants to avenge denial of a Congress ticket and Churchill wants to avenge the denial of first a Congress membership and ticket and then an alliance – though Faleiro was in favour of accommodating Churchill. Sardesai is Faleiro’s bête noire and blames him squarely for blocking his tie-up and seat sharing with the Congress, while Kamat wants Faleiro out of the way to position himself as the consensus Chief Minister should that occasion arise. This pincer movement may pin Faleiro to Navelim but what Messers Kamat and perhaps Rane do not realise is that will restrict his movements in other constituencies, where Kamat and Rane and other senior leaders will not go.
But as each man for himself, moves into the recesses of their own backyards to protect their turf, the Congress at least has the cushion of sending out a message very clearly that the road to this campaign has been built on a bedrock of building the organisation where none existed. And irrespective of which way this campaign turns out, the foundations for revival have been laid.
