The Congress introspection-cum-leadership selection meetings held by All India Congress Committee observer Rajani Patil in Goa showed that there are undercurrents within partymen, as much as there is confusion and chaos over the election debacle. While some of the Congress legislators cited internal differences, others blamed it on flawed decision-making by the leadership. Rajani however squarely blamed the BJP for engineering split in votes and pointed at parties like AAP, TMC and ‘others’. Interestingly, Rajani also mentions that Congress miscalculated the result.
While the Congress was doing an informal assessment, their alliance partner and Goa Forward leader Vijai Sardesai threw a bombshell by giving the BJP a clean chit while squarely blaming the Congress for mismanaging the election despite being seen as favourites. He spoke of how his party suffered in the alliance by settling for a raw deal when they had put a demand of seven seats. Lest we forget, it was the Goa Forward which was pursuing an alliance with the Congress with meetings held even in Delhi.
There is one question that emerges from this electoral post-mortem. Why are leaders playing a blame game now, when they were wilfully part of a team that was so high on confidence that even government formation plans were drawn, portfolios debated and speeches prepared. Are these few overambitious leaders trying to find scapegoats to hide their embarrassment?
The electoral debacle establishes the fact that there was a failure of leadership and party think-tank. Everyone at the helm must share responsibility, including Girish Chodankar, Digambar Kamat, P Chidambaram and Dinesh Gundu Rao. But why single them out now? Those pointing fingers are exposing their hypocrisy because these are the very individuals who were exuding high confidence and unnecessarily blowing the trumpet.
Congress leaders must admit their error of judgement and failure to understand the division of secular votes. The party must accept it as a collective failure and move on. Indulging in blame game and pointing fingers at individuals would defeat the team spirit, especially when a bunch of first-time legislators are set to take guard. Do not turn into a disgruntled force again by trying to bring down one another. The need of the hour is to prepare a unified and fearless Opposition. Congress needs to inculcate discipline and temperament in the new faces, especially in view of what the party has witnessed in recent times. The trend of restless and power-hungry legislators trying to engineer splits has to stop. A split in the Congress at this juncture, when it is about to begin its revival journey, would be catastrophic and all the work of rebuilding will be nullified.
The task before Congress is cut out. It needs a GPCC president who has the dynamism and zeal to take the party forward and a CLP leader who can stand up and show bravado. The party being a principal opposition will have a monumental task of building synergies between other players like AAP and RG. It’s time the Congress top brass stop nurturing a false hope of government formation and instead prepare a force to reckon with. While looking back, Congress has to look to the future.
