Lobo v/s Congress: A Big Rift Appears And Widens Between Goa Congress Leaders And Michael Lobo?

PANAJI: So the honeymoon between the Goa Congress top brass and former Calangute MLA Michael Lobo is finally over. In what could be sweet music to the ears of the BJP, AAP and TMC leadership in Goa, Lobo today openly expressed his “disappointment” with the Congress leadership who ‘denied’ his friend Reginald Lourenco the Curtorim ticket.

And in what could be considered the first signs of a major rift brewing and apparently widening between former Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, who switched sides from the BJP and joined the Congress, and the Goa State Congress leadership, Lobo (commenting on the refusal to re-admit Lourenco back into the Congress fold) expressed his deep dissatisfaction and frustration with senior Congress leaders, including the AICC in-charge P Chidambaram and Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao, without taking any names.

The reason for Lobo’s frustration is the fact that the Congress snubbed three-time, ‘best performing’ Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco and gave the ticket to a comparatively unknown entity Moreno Rebello, instead of Lourenco, who returned from the TMC in a huff, in spite of Lobo’s insistence with the Congress leadership, that Reginaldo should be given a chance.

Lobo made his intention very clear, when he openly invited Reginaldo to rejoin the Congress without even discussing the matter with the other leaders including State President Girish Chodankar and LoP Digambar Kamat.

The miffed Congress leaders felt Lobo who had just joined the party had exceeded his brief in interfering in the Reginaldo matter and decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Reginaldo was denied the ticket, to “teach him a lesson and also show Michael Lobo his place”, said a senior Congressman.

By doing so, the Congress top brass not only demonstrated to Reginaldo that they do not ‘need’ him to win Curtorim, but also showed Lobo who the bosses were. This decision was a case of ego over reason and the Congress leadership can still make amends as the ‘B’ forms are not yet given out.

But Lobo being Lobo, had to shoot his mouth off!

Not just that, Michael Lobo wanted “his man” to be given the Aldona ticket, which was also denied by the Congress team. He was told indirectly to be content with Calangute, Saligao, Siolim and Mapusa (where Lobo has his friends or proteges as Congress candidates) and draw the boundaries of “Together for Bardez”.

And Lobo who is very outspoken and could be a motor-mouth at times, went public with his “disappointment” with the Congress State brass, shooting from the hip at a crucial moment.

A little birdie today chirped that a ‘smarting’ Lobo may delay the delivery of the moolah to Congress House in retaliation for the royal snub, to show the Congress that they after all cannot bite the hand that feeds them.