Factionalism, as we’ve seen over the years from the early 80s, has been second nature to the Congress. But recent events show matters have reached a new low in internal strife even by Congress standards. John Fernandes, the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) chief who’s at the centre of the latest churning within the Congress, sees himself as the target of political vested interests after he set in motion attempts to purge the party of “traitors” and sweep out the dirt. “This is nothing more than moves by corrupt people to try and edge me out.
I’m not here to polish anyone’s boots. Action will be taken against those who worked and are working against my party,” Fernandes said as he sat waiting for a meeting with Rahul Gandhi in Delhi. Nine months ago when he took over the running of the demoralized PCC, Fernandes’ words would have sounded like a reassuring twinge of hope for a party sunk irretrievably in a ditch. But the escalation in the levels of infighting may have well put the party in the selfdestruct mode. “It is difficult to fathom what’s going on in the Goa Congress at the moment, but to an outsider it seems like they are on the path to hara-kiri,” says Francisco Colaço, who played a part in the campaign to get Alex Reginaldo Lourenço elected in South Goa in the Lok Sabha
election. Congress well-wishers are disappointed with the developments, considering that the only few people that
remain in the party are embroiled in bitter enmity. “Unfortunately, the Congress has become a party of individuals, with nothing of its own left,” he says.
The move to target the Ranes and single
out a few like Aleixo Sequeira for action
would only backfire on the party, the
Margao cardiologist feels, at a time
crucial for secular forces to come together.
A victim himself of the factional politics
of the Congress that did him out of a
party ticket in 2012, Vijay Sardesai argues
that unless the Congress admits to the
cardinal errors it committed in allowing
a few individuals to privatise the party,
it will not win the endorsement of the
people. Reginaldo pulled in 1,66,446
votes (to BJP’s 1,98,776) in South Goa.
This reflected the anti-BJP undercurrent
in many parts of Goa since the saffron
party’s win in assembly 2012. But the
Congress and its leaders played little
part in the Lok Sabha effort. Evidently it
is time the Congress showed its twotiming
“leaders” their place, he says.
“In Sanguem, Nuvem, there are new
people coming up. If the Congress behaves
in the right manner, it could win
them over.” Fernandes’ clean-up strategy
had a lot of support when he started
out. But clearly he has overreached himself.
His attack on the Ranes through
Balchandra Naik is unpardonable, and
may well have sealed his fate, Sardesai
believes.
Politics is as much the art of reinvention,
as public memory is short. In Bihar,
the irrepressible Lalu Prasad Yadav and
Nitish Kumar, bitter political rivals for
20 years, have actually kissed and made
up. In an alliance with the Congress
they won six of the 10 assembly seats
in the recent by-elections. Only in May,
the ‘Modi wave’ had snared 31 of Bihar’s
40 parliamentary seats. In Karnataka
too, the Congress secured two of the
three state assembly seats in the bypoll,
among them the Bellary Rural seat
that was thought to have been a BJP
stronghold.
Though these might appear like mere
flashes in the pan in the wake of Narendra
Modi and the BJP’s huge mandate in
parliament, they do underscore the unpredictability
of the Indian voter and
the element of surprise often contained
in a poll. What drives the voter? And is
there a message in the ballot? The point
being that in the game of political
survival, to fail to readapt could prove
suicidal, as it did with the Aam Aadmi
Party in Delhi and after.
Can the Congress in Goa reinvent
itself? The BJP’s perceptible acceptance
of saffron hardline affords a chink of
opportunity. In John Fernandes, a clean
party loyalist, the Congress appeared to
have a chance, until his abrasiveness
and political immaturity had him shoot
himself in the foot. A “reluctant” Luizinho
Faleiro is expected to move in soon
into the riverside office. Change has always
been the one predictable constant
in Congress politics in Goa.
