They proved it in the case of Mauvin Godinho and they have proven it in the case of Babush Monserrate. The Goa Congress just doesn’t have the spine to expel leaders who challenge, heap criticism and threaten to leave the party.
On the streets and the taverns of Goa, the word spine is replaced by a far more inappropriate word, but closer to the real sentiment. Since the time Monserrate announced that he was going to contest the Panjim by-elections as an independent, the Congress has had a funny set of responses. It has behaved like a hearing challenged by pretending not to hear Monserrate’s words “I will quit the party and contest as an Independent”. It has behaved like an ostrich with its head in the sand when he has “decided” to allow his wife to remain in the Congress while he will put up “one of his own boys”, as an Independent candidate from St Cruz, a seat he will vacate, to contest against the official party candidate. It will also remain helpless and hapless when it reads this morning, Monserrate’s conversation with Herald, where he has said that he will lose in Panjim on the Congress ticket but win easily as an Independent, adding for good measure that he is not a party man but a public figure.
While GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro may well take a stand that till Monserrate officially reigns, the party doesn’t need to take any action, it will be a facile argument, since with each statement Monserrate is humiliating and belittling the party, which it arguably deserves.
While Faleiro’s feisty predecessor John Fernandes, remained mum when Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho continued to function like a BJP MLA, loyalist and a Manohar Parrikar sycophant, he at least initiated action against party veterans who had prima facie breached party discipline.
Here we have an MLA, Monserrate, elected on a party ticket, deciding to quit the party and contest an election from another constituency, forcing the party to contest not one but two elections. The Congress’ silence has been so surprising that there is a buzz (though unfounded at this stage) that Monseratte and CCP Mayor Surendra Furtado may have entered into a pact, with one of them pulling out at the last moment to make the other win. Though Furtado isn’t sure of a Congress nomination, he is very much in the fray and this kind of a narrative where he is shown as Monserrate’s acolyte is detrimental to him.
The Congress may not have too many candidates to choose from with relative lightweights like Arthur Sequeira, Ezilda Sapeco and Dominic Savio filing applications for a nomination, but it could have easily come down on Babush Monserrate and shown spine by expelling him and going to the people saying that it would back clean disciplined candidates, even if it meant lowering its winning chances. The party’s silence is attracting suspicion that it may be waiting to do last minute deals since it has nothing to lose.
It is also learnt that the party instead of fixing its fundamental problem – not coming out as a party that is ready to work itself from bottom up – is looking for fresh and articulate messengers to give a proper spin and articulation to its attack against the ruling party. Luizinho Faleiro, according to reliable information, has sought the assistance of the sharp witted 29-year-old Advocate Yatish Naik to join the party and give it ‘voice’. But as Adv Naik himself would agree, the Congress is in greater need of a backbone than a sharp tongue.
It could start by standing straight and showing Babush Monserrate the door.
