Major rift in Goa Congress GPCC unit: Tug of war between 3 different lobbies?

PANAJI: A major, unspoken rift seems to be brewing in the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) with three different lobbies working in three different directions and thus damaging the prospects of the Grand Old Party in the coastal state.

Two out of the three lobbies are opposed to the continuance of the present team led by GPCC President Amit Patkar and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Yuri Alemao and want them replaced immediately. Several representations have been sent to New Delhi in this regard and the Congress high command is looking into these complaints we have learnt.

With less than one year left for the Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress leaders in Goa said the Party President must act immediately to sort out the issues raised by the groups, if they want the Congress to retain the South Goa parliamentary seat and make some strategic impact in the North.

Since both – the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are likely to contest the Lok Sabha polls in Goa, putting all their might into the fray, and with home-grown Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP), vote share will be spilt in 4 to 5 directions. Local party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) will be with the BJP in 2024 (it supported Congress candidates in 2019) and it will be next to impossible for the Congress to take on the combined might of the BJP and the MGP in 2024, even in South Goa, as the MGP has a decent voter base in Marcaim, Ponda, Shiroda, Sanvordem and other constituencies.

The traditional Congress voters of South Goa, particularly in Salcete are now split three-ways with the AAP and RGP playing spoilsport in the Catholic majority constituencies, upsetting the Congress poll plank.

Against this backdrop, the BJP has a 83 to 85 percent chance of winning the South Goa parliamentary seat in 2024, with BJP MLAs like Nilesh Cabral working round-the-clock. The BJP is also expected to improve its performance and vote margin in North Goa, winning comfortably with a huge lead.

In the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, the Congress South Goa candidate and present MP Francisco Sardinha managed to get around 8000 votes from the Shiroda constituency, which wouldn’t be possible for the Congress this time around, with former Congress-turned-BJP Shiroda MLA Subhash Shirodkar buring the midnight oil in his area. The 8000 votes from Shiroda helped the South Goa Congress candidate to hike his winning margin in 2019 and which was due to the MGP-BJP fight in the constituency. The Congress is not expected to get more than 4000 votes from Shiroda this time, in the present scenario with discontent brewing in the party. The same or similar situation applies in Benaulim, Velim and Margao constituencies, where the Congress is expected to lose a huge chunk of its traditional vote bank.

Against this backdrop, Congress loyalists in Goa are alarmed by the relatively susegad attitude of the present leadership and many of them have made their opinion known to Delhi.

Another recent incident which has created a rift in the party relates to the national event in Chhattisgarh. Several senior Congress leaders in Goa who wanted to attend the Congress Plenary Session in Navaraipur were not informed till the last moment. A senior Congress member who has been with the party for nearly 35 years called up this reporter to say he was not informed about the programme till the last day. He wrote to the Party President (we have accessed a copy of the letter) complaining about the “selective communication setup” in the GPCC, claiming that only ‘friends’ of Amit Patkar and Yuri Alemao were informed about the programme and has demanded an immediate rejig in the Goa leadership if the party wants to stay relevant in Goa.