Goa Polls
Goans have no respect for Mickky Pacheco, he cannot win even one seat: GFP
MARGAO: Responding to an IANS report which claimed that Nuvem politician Francisco Xavier Pacheco, also known as Mickky, is likely to be made the working president of the Goa Congress, the Goa People’s Forum (GFP) said Goans no longer have any respect for Pacheco and he won’t be able to win even his own seat.
Mickky was in Delhi and formally joined the Congress and is tipped to be appointed, the IANS report quoted sources as saying.
Mickky was quoted by IANS as saying: “he has not been given any commitment from the party, wants to settle the people in the Congress who have been with him for a long time and so he will meet senior Congress leaders in Delhi soon.”
Sources claim that Mickky met Kamal Nath who was instrumental in his joining the Congress and also met P. Chidambaram, Dinesh Gundu Rao, and K.C. Venugopal in Delhi. He has been asked to come back after a week to meet Rahul Gandhi, the IANS report claimed.
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Mickky has been Minister of Rural Development, Archeology, and Archives, Tourism, Captain of Ports, Housing, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and held several other portfolios. He won the first Assembly election as a member of the United Goans Democratic Party in 2002, later formed the United Goans Democratic Party (Secular), and merged that with the Bharatiya Janata Party in January 2005.
He later joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and won the 2007 election. Prior to the 2012 Legislative Assembly election, he left the NCP and joined the Goa Vikas Party (GVP), and in 2012 he quit the GVP and joined the Goa Su-raj Party.
While the Congress central leadership feels that he is influential, many state leaders think otherwise and in anonymity say that he is capable of winning only his own seat and is not influential in the whole state. They also point to the controversies around him, IANS said.
The Congress in Goa has three former Chief Ministers — Fransisco Sardinha, Luizinho Faleiro and Digambar Kamat. Girish Chodankar is the State President of the party and is considered close to Rahul Gandhi. The state goes to polls early next year in February.
Former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram was in the state this week and met party leaders and official functionaries across ranks during his visit after his appointment as State Election Observer.
The GPF termed Chidambaram’s visit a damp squib, saying it was a waste of party funds.