TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Congress has warned that it would permanently ban its members from re-entering if they leave the party.
Congress President John Fernandes said the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee would soon adopt a resolution to ban re-entry of leaders who leave the party and want to re-join after elections. The resolution assumes significance in the wake of South Goa Congressman Churchill Alemao’s threat to leave the party and contest as Independent over the ticket being denied to Valanka in South Goa.
“The party high command (who was informed about the situation in Goa) has asked the local leaders to go soft on Alemao as he has history of leaving the party and joining back. GPCC is contemplating on adopting a resolution which will block the leaders from re-entering,” he said.
The party has also termed Alemao’s outburst against the party as “election fever”. “It is election fever and will die soon…Everyone knows what he has done (for the State),” GPCC chief John Fernandes said responding to a media question whether Alemao will face action for party indiscipline.
Valpoi MLA Vishwajeet Rane insisted that party differences should be discussed behind closed doors rather than making an issue public. “We should address all issues behind closed doors. We have to be united… there are reasons we are sitting in the Opposition in the Assembly,” he said urging the members not to target each other. Both the senior politicians ~ Fernandes and Rane ~ are expected to personally meet Mauvin Godinho who fired the first salvo against the party much before sitting MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco’s name was announced as South Goa candidate. “There should not be anti-campaigns within the party. We should sink our differences,” Rane said.
Meanwhile, the Congress party strategy according to its leaders is to capitalise on what it calls the “growing resentment” among citizens against the ruling BJP government, to defeat it at the parliamentary elections.
During the meeting, party leaders also attacked the Manohar Parrikar-government for ‘dangling carrots’ to attract voters during elections and cheat them later.
“A present survey at every booth level shows the government has dangled carrots with promises of 50,000 jobs for youth and schemes for different section of the society… But they have instead mislead the people,” Ravi Naik said while addressing the gathering. He warned the government not to take advantage of the poor.
Valpoi MLA Vishwajeet Rane asked the party members to capitalise on the gaps created by the government. “We can fill in the gap…there is a lot of resentment among the people against the government and we can capitalise on that…We have a capable candidate (Naik) to defeat the chief minister…It is not a matter of pride but of survival,” he commented.
The two-hour long meeting, at GCCI hall, was attended by past MLAs of north assembly constituencies and office bearers, was called to plan campaigning strategy for the upcoming polls. Among the five sitting MLAs in the north ~ Babush Monserrate, Jennifer Monserrate and Pandurang Madkaikar were absent.
Leader of the Opposition and Poriem MLA Pratapsing Rane also strongly criticized the poor performance of the Digambar Kamat regime. “The last government was not up to the mark. I don’t want to speak much also as NCP was a part of Congress,” he said.
The senior Congressman also took a dig at the BJP-led government about making false promises while also conceding the Congress’ past mistakes as result of which it was defeated in the 2012 assembly elections.
“There may be mistakes by us but we do not speak lies. We do not promise the sun and moon, knowing it is not possible. But the present government has been the reverse,” he said alleging corruption in the present regime is rampant and ‘certain MLAs’ are involved in it. The party aims at targeting the age group between 18 and 35 years.
