Is Congress party in Goa engineering its own defeat? –By Nisser Dias

AICC president Rahul Gandhi

All India Congress party president Rahul Gandhi is burning candles at both ends not only to build bridges between the veterans and young gen congress men, but also between various political parties in a concerted effort to keep the BJP out of power not only at the centre but  also to eject them from various states.

His efforts have paid off in the Hindi heartland is recent assembly elections. At the same time the always smiling Gandhi scion has rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his sidekick Amit Shah.

Goa Desk In-charge
Chella Kumar

Sadly though congress men and women in Goa are doing just the opposite of what their president is doing thereby digging a deeper wedge into the already existing fissures among its members.

There is old saying about Congress in Goa, ‘Congressmen in Goa do not require external opposition as there is load of opposition within itself and the word ‘unity’ does not exist in their dictionary.’

Let’s us get down to knick-knacks, two pseudo congressmen Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte got elected on the congress during 2014 Assembly election. A year later they dumped the party and jumped on to the BJP bandwagon.

Instead of grooming the second rung congress leaders to contest the election, the state congress president Girish Chodankar is offering the defeated BJP leaders like Laxmikant Parsekar and others to contest on the Congress tickets.

Basically what Chodankar is doing is strangulating young blood that has remained loyal to the party and literally selling to the rivals.

Churchill Alemao and his daughter Valanka

One of congress office aptly compared the party ticket seekers to Chinese goods who bag the congress candidature and when the time is ripe switch over to the BJP.

Shiroda constituency has been the congress bastion but the Chodankar is inducing the staunch BJP workers promising them the ticket by denying party workers.

In Mandrem, the same man is trying to woo former BJP chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar to contest on the Congress.

Has the Congress which has a fair chance of winning back both the seat become so bankrupt that it does not have its own men to contest these elections that they need to hire defeated candidates from the BJP?

It only conveys one message loud and clear to party sympathizers and analysts that elections time is ‘briefcase’ and ‘suitcase’ time. It seems that Goa congress president Girish Chodankar and Goa desk in-charge Chella Kumar are engineering their own defeat for obvious reasons, otherwise why would these two personalities encourage 8 candidates from Shiroda constituency itself to make a show of their interest in contesting the bye elections when they could have identified just one candidate, assured him the ticket and asked him to commence his campaign in the constituency.

Pratima Coutinho and Girish
Chodankar

While other parties like the BJP and MGP have not only started canvassing but have already completed one round, Congress is yet to name its party candidate.

It does not end here, Chella Kumar and Girish Chodankar seem to be acting like BJP agents in the congress to oversee the defeat of its candidate even in the Lok Sabha polls.

The polls are slated in couple of months but the candidates are yet to be decided. And there seems to be deep rooted plan to keep good candidates out of the picture.

Mahila president Pratima Coutinho, former youth congress chief Valanka Alemao, ex MP Francisco Sardinha and it is rumoured that even Girish Chodankar himself is vying for ticket to contest parliamentary polls.

Lets us begin with Pratima Coutinho. With polls in mind she started taking up issues, sitting on dharnas, confronting department heads. She created social media groups of key party bearers in Goa and Delhi, another group of reporters and has been posting all her activity.  Recently at one talks, one of the speakers called her a non-Goan which she is and went on to predict that she is not going win.

Francisco Sardinha

Beyond that her closeness to Goa Forward top leadership is well known and it is being rumoured that she is being egged on to contest so that BJP south Goa MP who is seeking a second term gets a walkover. Incidentally she has not raised a protest of banner against the functioning of the Goa Forward TCP minister for allegedly bulldozing the ODP plan for Ponda and Margao or for the presence of bouncers for the same meeting.Valanka after her being denied the party ticket during the last Assembly husting was not at all in circulation. But Chella Kumar is rumoured to have approached NCP legislator Churchill Alemao to support Congress to form the government in Goa. In turn Alemao extracted his pound of flesh. Now his daughter has applied for the party ticket for Lok Sabha seat. To muddy the waters further, Girish Chodankar himself is one of the aspirants. Now all this game is to sideline the fourth applicant and that is former MP Francisco Sardinha.

The lines between both the political
parties are blurring

If at all one of the four candidates has a slight chance of winning the south Goa Lok Sabha seat it is Sardinha, because he has personal voters and workers.

It might look that GPCC president is all out to galvanize the Congress in Goa, but minute analysis indicate that he is giving away all the seats to the BJP on a platter.