Goa Congress must get rid of ‘grandfathers’, promote youth: Shreha Dhargalkar

MARGAO: You can love her or hate her, but you cannot ignore her. Goan social worker and women’s rights activist Shreha Dhargalkar is the woman about town, always involved in things that concern Goa.

She recently helped a poor family from Verna, whose dwelling was demolished by the authorities to get a plot of land from the government quota to construct a house. Just not that, she also met the Speaker of the Goa Assembly, Ramesh Tawadkar and implored him to help the family get some donations to build their house.

With the Lok Sabha elections less than two months away, Shreha shares her views on the situation in the Grand Old Party – the Goa unit of the Congress.

Speaking to this reporter, Shreha opines that the main problem in the Goa unit of the Indian National Congress (INC) is the interference of  ‘grandfathers’ even though should have long been retired and even if they may not be officially on any committee.

“I don’t want to take names, but I know so many good, hard-working Congressmen and women. They want to work and come up the political ladder, but they are being held down by ‘grandfathers’ who won’t retire from active politics. 20 or 30 years ago, the Congress (in Goa and the rest of India) had a lot of young blood, now the situation has changed. In every state there are multiple ex-CMs or ‘former’ Union Ministers. This is not only concerning Goa. The ex-CMs within the Congress fold will not let others go up. They will either promote their own kids or try to hang on to power at all costs. We see the same thing happening in South Goa and to an extent even in North Goa,” Shreha explained, adding that there are many capable workers who can do wonders, but the ‘grandfathers’ just won’t allow them.

“The other problem is that the ‘grandfathers’ are the ones who have money and the youngsters in the party – barring a couple of rich kids, are mostly broke. The freshers have to depend on the ‘grandfathers’ for funding for political activities and are kept under lock and key by their ‘financers’. As a result, even those who want to work are held down due to lack of funds and financial support,” Shreha claims.