Team Herald
MARGAO: On Sunday, Congress released the names of the new team who will be working under the Presidentship of Girish Chodankar in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and possibly the Assembly Elections this year. The 100-member State Committee team has many familiar faces along with some who have returned to active politics after a sabbatical. Will this new team change the fortunes of the Party and be a formidable force to take on the well-oiled machine BJP Party?
When asked whether the party is working on a strategy to fight the coming elections, Girish Chodankar informed that the strategy has already been worked out and the party will be going door to door from Tuesday onwards.
Sunil Kawthankar, one of the most aggressive and articulate young leaders in the Party and who has been appointed as the Chief Spokesperson, said that his team will take on the BJP and its allies head on. “We will fight for the people of Goa and hold the government accountable for breaking all the promises they made to the people”, he said
Demographic representation
One of the biggest challenges for the Congress is to take on the Hindutva agenda and shed the image that it is a party for only the minorities. The State committee has around 60% Hindus, 30% Catholics and the rest are Muslims, which approximately reflects the demographics of the State.
While the various caste groups have been represented in the committee, the Congress could have done better with its list of Muslim Leaders. The leaders which are in the list all have had limited success in growing from party loyal workers to mass community leaders in the party.
Old versus new
The re-appointment of party veterans like Moti Desai and Dharma Shirodkar (Ex MLA) has been balanced with the elevation of younger leaders such as Sankalp Amonkar and Vitoba Desai.
Swati Kerkar, who has been appointed as the spokesperson of the party said that she is happy that the party has appointed many new faces to the State committee who had worked for years in the party. She also praised the party for the policy, -one person one position ‑ where every office bearer is given only one post. Most past MLA candidates and future MLA prospects such as Savitri Kavlekar, Mariano Rodrigues, Tulio D’Souza, have been appointed as secretaries or spokespersons.
Achilles’ Heel – Party MLAs
The image of the Congress has traditionally been as strong (or weak) as the image of its MLAs. Interestingly, the shrewd and diplomatic Filipe Neri Rodrigues, MLA of Velim, has been appointed as one of the 12 Vice-Presidents of the party along with the outspoken Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco and Nilkanth Haldankar. It remains to be seen whether these three vice-presidents will help execute a coordinated strategy against the ruling BJP-GFP-MGP Government.
In the run-up to the 2017 elections, the GPPC President had proposed a radically new transparent process for selecting the candidates. However, during implementation, the idea fell flat on its face due to lack of support from the office bearers at various levels. Will they perform or be replaced after three months’ assessment; the policy may suffer the same fate like before. Or will this policy help the party change its fate and image. Only time will tell.
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BOOKLET ON MODI GOVT’S FAILURE
MARGAO: The Congress party has published a six-page booklet titled “Fakery Derails Modi Sarkar Fails” in which they have highlighted more than 40 failures of the BJP government. The booklet also includes 28 areas ‑ what they call misgovernance in Goa.
The booklet starts by attacking the BJP on its failed promise of fighting against corruption, bringing back black money and lists several “scams” such as Rafale, Demonetisation, Vyapam scam, GPDS, etc. This is followed by a section “Betrayal of the Youth”, wherein the Congress claims through five examples that no jobs have been created. Farmers’ protests, persecution, and prosecution of Dalits and ST and the poor state of the economy have also been highlighted.
Interestingly, the Congress has stayed away from including contentious issues such as cow slaughter and related mob lynching. They also made no mention of communal tensions created by BJP backed right-wing radical groups. While the BJP is dependent on social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp as a tool to spread its propaganda material, Congress is falling back on its tried and tested method of sharing propaganda material by going door to door in an attempt to change its fortunes in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
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PERFORM OR BE READY TO BE REPLACED: GIRISH
MARGAO: “Rahul Gandhi is following a strict policy, perform or be replaced”, said Girish Chodankar. Under this new policy, the performance of the office bearers will be revised every three months and those who do not perform will be replaced. Girish informed that all the office bearers have been given training in leadership and organisation skills and even party ideology for the last eight months. He said that the officers have been selected based on their past performance and the amount of time they can dedicate to the party.
But there is another strategy underplay. In previous committees, the State Party President the number of office bearers would be around less than half the present number. This would create resentment within the ranks. For example, the former Party President late Shantaram Naik had kept all those who he thought were loyal to his predecessor Luizinho Faleiro, such as Sunil Kawtankar, Yatish Naik etc, Vijai Pai at a distance which had weakened the party.
Not wanting to invite such resentment, Girish Chodankar appears to have given an opportunity to whoever has shown interest. The quarterly review will allow the party to remove those who seek top party position with no intention of working for the party.
