Why is the Goa Congress crying foul less than a week after polling has happened and a good 18 odd days till the votes are counted? The GPCC president Girish Chodankar’s alarm that prospective Congress MLAs are already getting lucrative overtures from BJP to poach them is too quick a reaction.
But it is a reaction or an overreaction? Or for that matter an attempt to preempt any such overtures which will once again lead to stabbing people in the back.
How long will Goans see merchants trading their votes which contain their hopes, aspirations, beliefs, and above all an investment for their future generations?
The people of Goa are watching. Goans have voted honestly. One would hope they have voted clearly. It will be a crime against the people of Goa if this mandate is manipulated and twisted by buyers and sellers. How long will Goans see merchants trading their votes which contain their hopes, aspirations, beliefs, and above all an investment for their future generations?
More than the buyer, Goans will not forgive or forget the seller of the people’s mandate
The Congress will be well-advised to stop attempting to prepare any ground to soften the blow of its future MLAs defecting. It should make good the promise made by its senior-most leaders, publicly as well as exclusive to Herald across interviews that they are “100% sure” that not a single MLA will defect. This was said in so many words by both Digambar Kamat as well as P Chidambaram. Mr. Chidambaram also said this publicly. “I assure you that once you get us a majority in Goa, a government will be formed. The mistakes of 2017 will not happen,” he said.
If this surety is being indeed felt internally, then distress calls should not happen. But the GPCC president’s nervousness or “knowledge” seems to suggest otherwise.
Herald in its Insight had earlier analyzed that one of the main reasons why people bolted from the party after which it tried to lock its stables was because of its leadership. This time the leadership, bit by its body language and statements, appeared to have given the confidence to its fresh candidates and to its people that 2022 is not going be a repeat of 2017, and that is perhaps the only reason, along with no giving tickets to a single defector, that both the party and its supporters decided to close ranks and give it another shot.
That has to a large extent, especially after Priyanka Gandhi’s and Rahul Gandhi’s visits galvanized the party with a hope that it will be consolidating anti-BJP votes towards its candidates and bypassing the split factor.
Congress should know that this time there cannot be any excuses. Secondly, blaming the BJP or any other party or force will not absolve itself from the ultimate betrayal of the people’s mandate.
While the BJP’s politics of forming governments from seemingly impossible positions has almost become a post-poll norm which is expected, the Congress’ failure to have people who will not sell, (their conscience and people’s faith) has been seen as a bigger failure or crime.
The Congress should close ranks, speak to its candidates and remind them that this time they owe it to their conscience and to the future of their children and grandchildren.
