PANJIM: Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik has been appointed the new Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President with immediate effect. Naik will take charge on Saturday.
This, however, appears to be an interim arrangement since the party’s organisational elections, including for the post of State unit President, are due in September-October, this year.
“The Congress President Sonia Gandhi has accepted the suggestion to appoint Shantaram Naik as the President of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee in place of Luizinho Faleiro with immediate effect,” All India Congress Committee General Secretary Janardhan said in the order issued on Friday afternoon. “Naik has been president of the Pradesh Congress Committee earlier also,” he added.
“I am happy and grateful to Soniaji and Rahulji for giving me such an important responsibility and I will do my best to serve the party,” Naik told Herald. His term in the Rajya Sabha is due to expire on July 28.
As per the GPCC communication, outgoing President Faleiro will hand over charge to Naik on Saturday afternoon.
Faleiro had tendered his fresh resignation to President Sonia Gandhi last month, following resentment amongst MLAs over his continuation in the post.
“I am very much thankful to Soniaji and Rahul Gandhi for relieving me from the responsibility. I will be always available as mentor and guide. After all, I am and will always be part and parcel of the Congress family,” the former Chief Minister said.
Faleiro was appointed as party chief on October 14, 2014. “My mandate was to strengthen, rejuvenate and energise a dispirited and demoralised party. I did my job,” he said recalling that he had first tendered his resignation in October 2015.
The Congress party which fared well in the February Assembly elections by winning 17 seats could not form the government despite being the single largest party, and some MLAs had held Faleiro responsible.
GPCC, in its newsletter issued on Thursday, had claimed that the alliance partners had shown willingness to support Congress with the condition that Faleiro should not be projected as chief minister.
Faleiro had tendered his resignation claiming that a group of MLAs were feeling that his continuance in the post was hindrance to party’s plans to form a government in the State.
