Screaming Reginaldo, silent Congress

| NOVEMBER 17, 2012, 11:41 AM IST

The problem with having a self-proclaimed party spokesman,who is turning out to be rapid-fire motor mouth, is that barring high decibelstatements, there is zero presence of party men and party work.

Curtorim MLA Alexio Reginald Lourenco, to the best of publicknowledge, is spokesman of the Congress Legislature Party and not the GPCC.While there is no bar on him speaking as a Congressman concerned about Goa’swelfare, is his voice that of the party or the legislature party? These thingsare important in an organised set up the Congress claims to be. But the issueisn’t really of the young Reginaldo trying to create political relevance forhimself. The issue is the huge gap between the shouting and bluster of the mostaudible voice of the party and the hollowness of the Congress’ organisation.And even the MLA’s from the hip comments like “the BJP is a casteist party andbackward caste leaders have been sidelined,” have invited ridicule. 

It has been nine months since the BJP government came topower. There has been no credible response of the GPCC on the performance ofthe Parrikar government, no questions have been asked on promised schemes andmoreover there has been no coercive united action plan to force the governmentto kick start two of its major promises – a redone new Regional Plan and theappointment of a Lok Ayukta. Lourenco’s intentions may be clean and right buthe is more of a misguided missile than the voice of a party that has a unitedplan.

There is nothing clear in the party. There are two partyPresidents but nonfunctioning frontal units. There is no idea if there exists asingle document appointing Subhash Shrodkar as ‘acting president” after he quitbefore the assembly elections, or Fransisco Sardinha as working president.There is no idea what the work profile of the “working” president is as opposedto the “acting” president.

To cut a long story short, the Congress in Goa is anonfunctional directionless party, which Reginaldo himself admitted during arecent rare meeting of the party in the presence of AICC’s J S Brar andSudhakar Reddy. “At least we know that there is a Congress in Goa”

Currently, barring Reginaldo’s misdirected daily outbursts,we don’t know if there is Congress is Goa.

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