Team Herald
PANJIM: Unlike Mark Anthony who offered Julius Ceaser the crown three times, and Ceaser refused all the time not wanting the people to know he was king, Girish Chodankar offered to give up his Congress crown but never really gave it up for three years or for that matter, his party let him wear it, even as the party got eroded bit by bit.
This is the third time Girish Chodankar has resigned/offered to resign and each time little is heard of the resignation offer till the next one offered to meet the same fate. He first resigned after he lost his Lok Sabha election to May 2019, the second time after the party’s poor performance in the Zilla Panchayat elections in December 2020 and now after the Congress managed just 11 seats out of the 37 it contested.
When a party is strong votes don’t split. What happened was a Congress vote transfer to RG and some other parties
The series of resignation offers and then continuing has been going on for three years. And yet Congress has
continued with the same president even as the party has lost each election at every level. At the same time people both at the grassroots, the block, and district level, those within the organisation started leaving the party. This meant the organisation was weakened from within even as party tickets were offered to anybody and everybody like bus tickets offered by a conductor.
The Congress cannot blame other parties, therefore for splitting their votes. It was simply not strong enough to get all the anti-incumbency votes. Do you think if the Congress was strong, had a functioning organisation, and gave tickets as per what their local leaders wanted, it would have lost votes to other parties?
Simple Fact: In 2017 without a strong anti-incumbency, Cong got 17. In 2022 with an anti-incumbency wave against BJP, Congress got 11 seats
In Punjab, former Congress president who headed the campaign committee for the Congress in the Punjab elections, Sunil Jakhar criticized heavily the choice of CS Channi as Chief Minister and Navjot Singh Siddhu as the party chief and said that they were ‘liabilities’ and the ‘Congress was like company filing for bankruptcy’.
The same holds true in Goa about the leaders who led the Congress in these Assembly elections. The Congress needs to answer why it could not consolidate all anti-incumbency votes when it was by far the largest premier opposition party that could have formed the government in 2017. In 2022 there were more factors going in its favour than ever before.
Vote splits happen only when you can’t keep your vote bank intact. The Congress can blame no one but itself for vote split
Proper honest candidate selections, of grassroots leaders, would have gone a long way. For instance, in St Andre, panchas sand sarpanchas got together to pledge support to Savio Monteiro who would have given Congress that seat. At the last moment, he was denied. At that point, grassroots support for him got transferred to Revolutionary Goans. So, in St Andre, the Congress votes did not split. Crucial votes got transferred to the RG because of wrong decisions by the GPCC leadership headed by Girish Chodankar.
All along Herald had highlighted the Congress inefficiencies and how they were going to squander away a winning opportunity. It got 11 seats due to the goodwill and the traditional vote it had but lost the confidence of more than half of its core voters who simply did not think Congress was strong enough to be the sole opposition to the BJP. Meanwhile, the RG party sold the POGO bill dream to many innocent Goans. Many, who were disillusioned with the Congress, voted for RG believing in that dream.
The Congress cannot ignore or fail to introspect on these things. It was communicated to the highest levels of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi himself, what the failings of the Congress were and the leadership changes that were needed. These points were recommunicated to P Chidambaram AICC’s observer for Goa. Yet they were ignored and the party went ahead without any changes to the crumbling organisation and the GPCC presidentship.
Ultimately who benefitted? The BJP. The Congress has not turned out to be the BJP’s biggest political threat but the BJP’s asset. It’s utter mismanagement of the elections helped BJP to come back. Yes, votes went to other parties, especially the RG, but these votes would have never gone if the Congress was strong.
The BJP, therefore, has come back. One only hopes that they uphold the values of democracy, where religion, caste, creed and other issues are kept aside and it is Goa first. This is what people expect.
At the same time professionals and experts from all walks, especially industry, academics, and responsible media who are with the people, should be involved in the process of governance because there will be a talent pool deficit within the elected and the government service pool.
While the Congress, one hopes will seriously learn and introspect, Goa must move on and responsible sections of society must play their part.
