Goa: “Leaving Aside 2-3 Leaders, Congress Appoints Nincompoops As Committee Members”

PANAJI: With less than six months left for the State Assembly polls in the coastal state of Goa, the Congress High Command in New Delhi appointed a series of “high-powered committees” to oversee the poll process, selection of candidates and the campaign efforts of the party.

According to a Hindustan Times report, in a media statement, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal said the Congress president “approved a proposal for the continuance of Girish Chodankar as the president of the GPCC and Digambar Kamat as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party.

Chodankar will be assisted by former Nuvem MLA Aleixo Sequeira, who has been appointed the working president, the note said.

Sequeira’s appointment is being seen as a move to mollify the party’s old guard who were upset with Chodankar’s style of functioning, HT reported.

But, according to the Goa People’s Forum (GPF) – a think tank of Goan lawyers, journalists, IT professionals, social workers and others, the high command has erred in its selection of the committees and their members.

The Goa People’s Forum which calls itself the “Friends of Congress” is determined to bring the Congress back to power in Goa and states that it will not allow party leaders to make the same mistakes they did in 2017 and during the by-polls of 2019.

Citing an example, a spokesperson for the GPF said there is a clear clash of interest among the Committee members as the newly-appointed Working President Sequeira is desperately trying to get a Congress ticket for himself, and the Publicity Committee members seem to be new on the job, with little experience of handling National Media as well as Social Media.

“A major propaganda and social media campaign is required. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Goa unit has a lead of six months to one year when it comes to subtle as well as in-your-face SM campaigns. You need experienced hands on the job. Does the newly-appointed publicity committee have the requisite expertise and experience,” asked Espy Costa of Ponda who is the co-convener of the GPF?

“Aleixo Sequeira is one of the main contenders for a Congress ticket in the Nuvem constituency and is himself on a sticky wicket in his constituency, as he has to take on (former Congress) sitting MLA Wilfred Babashan D’sa who is a formidable force in Nuvem and is leaving no stone upturned to ensure that he is re-elected from the Catholic-dominated South Goa constituency. Another former MLA Mickky Pacheco who recently joined the Congress, is also vying for a ticket from the same constituency as Sequeira,” said Mumbai-based social worker and Adv. Evonne Mendes, who originally hails from Sequeira’s constituency Nuvem, adding that Sequeira’s attention and focus will only be on Nuvem. How will he focus on the entire State,” she wondered?

Mendes though now living in Mumbai, is a dedicated Congress worker in the financial capital of India and wants the Congress to come to power in Goa in 2022.

“Either Sequeira must give up his claim for the Nuvem ticket and work as the “Working President” of the party, taking care of all the constituencies, or he must stick to Nuvem and stake his claim for the ticket,” Mendes opined.

Similarly Chodankar must not look at contesting polls if he continues to be the State party president, Mendes said.

The decision to continue with Chodankar, comes as a shock to the anti-Chodankar lobby. He had earlier resigned twice — after the party’s dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, including the State by-polls, in which the party chief himself lost to the BJP’s Shripad Naik from the North Goa seat, and then in December 2020 after the Zilla Parishad polls.

Summing up the selction of the new Committees, another senior GFP functionary, Nuvem-based Priyanka D’souza who is the secretary of the Goa People’s Forum quipped: “Leaving Aside 2-3 Leaders, Congress Appoints Nincompoops As Committee Members”