TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Luizinho Faleiro on Friday admitted that the party leadership had weakened and that this could be the prime reason for some Congress legislators’ utterances that they were quitting the party. He said that the party needs to go to the people again and apologise for its mistakes.
“Congress has got an inherent strength to go back to the people and tell them that we are sorry for our past mistakes. We might have erred in fulfilling certain expectations of the people,” he said.
“So what do you do? Once you commit many sins, you go to (river) Ganga and take bath. As a child I was told to go for confession. If I made a mistake, I must say I am sorry. I am ready to say it standing on any stage,” Faleiro said.
The GPCC president also announced that his priority was to “regain” the place of a vibrant political opposition in the state.
“The Congress party is not weak, but the Congress leadership might have become weak. Congress party was formed on a strong ideology built on policies, principles and programmes,” Faleiro said.
“I don’t feel that the legislators are not happy with Congress. They think that the leadership has become weak,” he said reacting to a statement by Congress MLA Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, that he would quit the party to contest the Panjim by-polls.
Refusing to elaborate, Faleiro said, “I don’t want to react to such statements. We were in the Congress when hardly any MLAs were left with us and still Congress had bounced back to become the ruling party of the state.”
The Congress leader said that efforts are now on to regain and retake the place of a strong and vibrant political opposition in Goa and the process to rebuild the same has started. “We will take back our position of a strong opposition. We will reach out to people, discuss and debate on various crucial policies of government on mining, regional plan, tenancy act and other issues,” Faleiro said, adding that he would launch awareness through social media on these issues.
The Congress party has scheduled its state level Chintan Shibir in Goa on December 13 where the party will come out and assess what went wrong.
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Congress calls nominations for Panjim by-polls
With Panjim MLA Manohar Parrikar set to resign his membership of the legislative assembly, Congress party is gearing up for the Panjim by-polls, which have to be held within six months from the date of his resignation.
GPCC has asked its senior leaders to submit names of probables and also asked interested candidates to submit their names, GPCC president Luizinho Faleiro said.
