The outgoing GPCC President John Fernandes, has in his post ouster press conference, left no one in any doubt that he is unfit for mature party politics. While lashing out at everybody, sparing no one from the Chief Minister to unnamed corrupt Congressmen, to even the new president Luizinho Faleiro and his family, Fernandes behaved like a sulking boy on the street, not an outgoing president of his party and a senior congressman.
It is clear that for John Fernandes, it is either his way or the high way. A man who swore allegiance to the High Command, today said that the Congress Legislature Party was a floating party of the BJP and the GPCC, the organisation he presided over till Tuesday, was heading that way. Little does Fernandes realise that a state of madness is fine in the confines of a drawing room, but not in a public platform where he is drawing the same high command into his ring of accusations. His removal was a decision taken by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on the basis of tangible reports about the manner of his functioning. While there may differences of opinion and surely, as our edit pointed out on Wednesday, there was a different take on John in some sections, no one in the Congress will buy Fernandes’ wild charge that his removal was a part of a honey deal between Goa CM Parrikar and some Congressmen.
His statements today actually prove that the Congress made two terribly poor decisions. Of appointing John Fernandes, and taking so long to remove him. For arguments sake and for charitable purposes, even if he is the epitome of honesty and a devotee of clean politics, no party can afford loose cannons to lead it, who accuse their own party leaders of taking bribes and doing deals with the opposition in press conferences conducted in the party office. Fernandes’ has now done it twice. He first did it when he invited his dubious crony B Naik to the GPCC office to level bribery charges against the Ranes and now a day after he was removed, he called the media to the Congress office to insult and belittle the incoming president by saying that he would be soft opposition and that the party would be a floating company of the BJP.
It will be worth checking that even in the seedy cesspool of Congress politics, has any Congress leader in the country, leave alone a state president, spoken in this manner about his own party leadership, in public, while continuing to be in the party.
In fact his comments today- without even going into the authenticity of his charges- is a fit case for disciplinary action. He should in any case, be out of the disciplinary committee of the GPCC, after which a newly constituted committee should watch a video recording of his press conference and initiate disciplinary action.
Now here’s a caveat. None of the above should mean that the Congress is devoid of corrupt leaders or that the Chief Minister doesn’t have enough material on Congress leaders to keep them in permanent subjugation. But for the Congress, it doesn’t augur well that John Fernandes is clearly building walls within the party by saying he will work with his handpicked youngsters and not actually with the new president. In any case a comatose party needs to meet its survival goal first and it doesn’t help if the bad blood project is kept alive by an outgoing President.
But there’s a flip side which is more pleasant. Fernandes’ bluster and perhaps a bit of the bluff will die down once the new dispensation takes over. Team Luizinho will be under constant watch by the people and the media. While it will have to fight its own battles, it looks very likely that the ostensibly well intentioned Fernandes, has dug his own political grave with the same sword by which wanted to cut others to size.
