PANJIM: They have a common issue to fight for. But the political egos of the Congress, forced them not to share a common platform at the Maad Yatra held at Pernem on Sunday.
Despite Manohar ‘Babu’ Azgaonkar attending the massive rally that passed through Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s residence, other Congressmen, following high command directives, stayed away giving a clear signal that the Faleiro-led GPCC has no plans of any grand alliance with Goa Forward.
Congress Mahila State President Pramod Salgaocar made this explicit when she posted a message on a What’s App group at 8.45 pm on Saturday night “As per instructions of our GPCC President Luizinho Faleiro, we are NOT joining the maad march tomorrow”.
Interestingly, Azgaonkar had taken the charge to hold the procession in what could have been a mega show of strength. And it was Azgaonkar, who looked at ground realities rather than the GPCC president’s orders and turned up to support the Vijai Sardesai-inspired rally.
Anticipating that Independent legislators would overpower the rally, the Congress bigwigs found another reason to boycott it. Cumbarjua MLA Pandurang Madkaikar has termed the incident a major communication gap between the main organiser of the rally and the party.
“If there was no communication failure on the part of Azgaonkar, we would not only have attended the rally but also appealed our workers to join us. We were under the impression that Vijai Sardesai (Fatorda Independent legislator) will flag it off and display his banners, which is why we decided not to participate,” he said speaking to Herald. This makes it clear the absolute disarray the party is in.
On the contrary, it was in fact a mega show of the newly formed Goa Forward comprising of the Independents. A buzz on Sunday said that Sardesai had called for the rally.
Claiming the rally was not on party lines, Madkaikar denied any specific order barring them from attending the march. He was however quick to add that “…our AICC general secretary (Digvijay Singh) has asked us to refrain from attending gatherings organised by other groups. Since we are a national party, we should not be under anyone.”
Porvorim Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte, on the other hand, claimed the call for Maad Yatra was to bring together people from across different party lines to oppose the recent amendment to Trees Preservation Act. “The call by Goa Forward was with an aim to come together on a common platform irrespective of any party, to speak on a common agenda. The main issue of coconut tree and identity of Goenkars,” he said.
Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, who has been a vocal critic of his very own party, had a reason not to participate in the rally. “I was away for a football match. If I was in Goa, I would have certainly joined the yatra,” he said, maintaining he would have defied the order, if any.
The ‘third front’ supporter pointed out that such diktats have marred the image of the party as he hinted at party President Luizinho Faleiro for allegedly doing so. “All this is done to promote one person in an attempt to show the high command (in Delhi) that he still commands the State unit. The self-centred role of some party leaders, resigning and returning back into the party fold has given us a bad name,” he rued.
Khaunte took a dig at the party stating it should decide where they stand.
However, the senior leaders denied issuance of any such order with Margao MLA Digambar Kamat asserting that he was busy attending other meetings scheduled on the same day. “We are not aware,” he commented when asked whether he was in the know of the diktat.
But sources say that it was Kamat who specifically called up Babu Azgaonkar to tell him not to participate in the rally since AICC secretary A. Chellakumar had called him to convey the High Command’s view on the issue.
Faleiro declined to offer any comment on the issue by only stating “We have held 2-3 programmes demanding status for Coconut Tree so far…”
