The Congress party finally announced that its MLA and former minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate has been expelled for indulging in ‘anti-party activities’ during the recently-held Panjim constituency bypoll. Goa Congress spokesman Sunil Kawathankar told the media: ‘Congress president Sonia Gandhi, considering the conduct and acts of indiscipline of Santa Cruz MLA Atanasio Monserratte, has decided to expel him from the party for six years’.
At long last…
We have been hearing for months that following his open revolt, his high voltage campaign for the BJP candidate for Panjim Siddharth Kunkalienkar, and his arrogant challenges to the party that it can take what action it wants against him, that his exit was imminent.
In fact, on Saturday, January 24, All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Dr A Chellakumar told the media that the Congress ‘does not need such anti-party workers and it would be better if they leave the party’. Warning that ‘we cannot allow these juniors to dictate or rule the Congress party as per their terms and conditions’, he added that ‘there is no doubt that strong action will be taken against him and all those who work against the party’. Dr Chellakumar was speaking after holding a one-on-one meeting with Monserrate, during which the latter told him openly that he would support the BJP and work against Congress candidate Surendra Furtado to ensure his defeat. The High Command emissary said that he would submit his report to AICC general secretary and Goa desk in-charge Digvijaya Singh for action.
Notwithstanding this, it took the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee’s (GPCC’s) executive committee till Tuesday 17 February to pass a resolution that Monserrate be expelled for working against the party. Presumably, it is only after this that the disciplinary wheels of the party started turning in New Delhi. Part of the reason for the delay, we are told, is that the matter was placed before the party’s disciplinary committee, which examined not just Monserratte’s case but those of ‘several other leaders’ and ‘indicted’ them. These, we are told, include Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho and former St Cruz MLA Victoria Fernandes.
Of the three, Godinho and Monserrate have both remained unabashedly and vocally defiant during the interregnum. Both are senior members of the party. Though according to Kawathankar, Sonia Gandhi has also directed the local unit to take action against other rebel leaders who indulged in anti-party activities; this does not seem to have deterred either of these two.
On the contrary, Monserrate has reacted to his expulsion from the Congress saying he is ‘very happy and relieved’. ‘I am no longer an untouchable for the BJP and can therefore get all my development work done,’ he is reported to have told the media. Though he has complained that his expulsion was not transparent or democratic, and that he was not issued a show-cause notice nor given an opportunity for a personal hearing, he seems quite unconcerned by these developments. Godinho has not yet been shown the door, but his recent statements suggest that he too would at least be ‘happy’, if not ‘very happy’, if he was expelled.
There is a reason for this. The Congress, traditionally, has a revolving door policy for anti-party activities. Leaders who rebel and sabotage the party’s prospects by working against it during election time do get expelled. But, by the time the next election comes around, they are usually welcomed back into the party with open arms, like the ‘prodigal son’ of the parables. This has happened so many times in the past that expulsion holds no terror for any Congressman or Congresswoman. Why, Monserrate and Godinho have themselves been out of the party earlier, and then back in, with all sins forgiven.
Unless this revolving door is firmly and permanently shut, nothing is going to change. Unless the party decides that the sole criterion for candidate selection should not be ‘winnability’ alone, that change is unlikely to come about. Unless Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is presently ‘MIA’ (Missing in Action), comes back, decides to take to politics full time and forcefully changes the way the Congress functions, the party is unlikely to learn any lessons from its terrible defeats in Goa, in the Lok Sabha elections, in Maharashtra and in Delhi. Monserrate, Godinho and the others will then have the last laugh.
