The Congress Party continues to be at sea with elections less than three weeks away. With time running out, the Party bigwigs will need to get into the act soon if they are to pose any serious challenge to a rampaging BJP. The party may have managed to quelled rebellion from candidates who fell out, but Mandrem proves to be a tough nut to crack. The game plan of allocating the North Goa seat to Girish Chodankar so as to make way for veteran Ramakant Khalap in Mandrem appears to be backfiring with two other probables Babi Bagkar and Sachin Parab threatening to put a spoke in the wheel.
By delaying announcement of their Mandrem candidate, the party is postponing the inevitable. Even if the rebel candidate is technically restrained from filing his nomination by holding back names till the 11th hour, the party is bound to face rebellion in the run-up to the polls and it is to be seen how the leadership handles this. So far, the Congress party has succeeded in doing a fine balancing job of containing resentment from candidates who lost out. A case in point was Mahila Congress President Pratima Coutinho, who fell out after a tight race with Francisco Sardinha, but reconciled after the initial outbursts and promised to work in the interest of the party’s candidate.
However, the chaos is not only restricted to candidate selection. It spans across election managers too. While Digambar Kamat was hand-picked as the campaign manager for Goa by party president Rahul Gandhi in February, the Margao MLA is clueless over the party campaign since leaders within the party have been taking unilateral decisions bypassing all hierarchies. It is still unclear if Digambar would even venture out of his constituency to campaign for party candidates. So is the case in Shiroda where Ravi Naik is entrusted with the job which the seasoned Ponda campaigner has refused to handle.
In faraway north, a different picture emerged as Girish Chodankar filed his nomination papers. He was accompanied by a battery of Congressmen including former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane, Babu Kavlekar, Jennifer Monserrate and others. Interestingly, it is to be seen how Sr Rane makes a pitch for Girish after batting for BJP candidate Shripad Naik. Lest we forget, Sr Rane had recently heaped lavish praise on Shripad at a public function and appealed to the people to re-elect him.
To add to the chaos is the million dollar question of finances. This remains a crucial question since there is heavy campaign spending that runs into crores of rupees at any election. With time running out, the Congress will have to get its act together in quick time. For now, the BJP holds a distinct campaigning edge on the ground.
