Team Herald
PANJIM: Congress that had emerged as the single-largest political front just three years back in 2017 State Assembly elections, albeit left with only five now; on Monday, faced its most humiliating defeat ever, with the party managing to win hardly 13 per cent of the total seats it contested for the second-tier panchayati Raj body. The elections that covered rural Goa, which were looked upon as a semi-final in the run up to 2022 State polls, raises serious questions about the future of the country’s oldest political front in Goa.
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It was even more shocking, that the party failed to win in constituencies in the talukas of Ponda and Sattari, which are represented by former Chief Ministers and its senior most leaders and sitting MLAs Ravi Naik and Pratapsingh Rane respectively. Being a municipal area, MLA Digambar Kamat’s Margao constituency doesn’t get affected by panchayat election, while the election in Navelim, represented by MLA Luizinho Faleiro was countermanded due to the death of a candidate.
It was only Curtorim, from where MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco is elected, that managed to gain victory, along with St Cruz, Nuvem and Velim – the three constituencies that faced dissidents after the then Congress MLAs joined BJP and are presently represented by the ruling party. This part though has been hailed by Congress supporters in those constituencies.
On Monday, the (BJP won a landslide in the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) election, reducing Congress to a much diminished force. At the end of counting, Congress had won only 4 of 49 seats. The party, however, contested in 37 seats.
The party managed to garner hardly 3.13 per cent of the total votes polled for the entire ZP election.
In 2015, Congress had not contested the ZP polls that saw the independents winning almost 25 of the 50 seats, BJP 18, and MGP, which was then in an alliance with the BJP won five seats.
The party leaders and critics have blamed internal politics, lack of leadership skills in party chief Girish Chodankar and old-guards taking centre stage, for the party’s downfall.
“After Goa Assembly election, the INC High Command felt that the Goa party unit will boost the morale of its workers countrywide. However, as being feared, the political graph of the grand old party, continued to go down as its nationwide trend is at present,” a senior Congress leader commented adding ‘time has come when we need to introspect and revamp the party right from grass-root level’.
