While the BJP appear to be a disjointed lot in the absence of their leader and chief minister Manohar Parrikar, the story of Congress is no different, in fact it is worse. The selection of the new Goa Pradesh Congress President has gone into extra time and despite Goa desk in charge Chella Kumar’s round of consultations, the High Command is yet to announce a new leader. It now appears that the new GPCC chief will only be announced after Karnataka polls in May. The delay means that either the Congress bosses don’t want to rush into a decision or are still confused over making a choice.
Despite the absence of a leader, a handful of Congressmen have managed to take the fight forward. These include Congress Legislative Party leader Babu Kavalekar, Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco and Secretary, All India Congress Committee, Girish Chodankar. However, the Congress has failed to amplify these voices into mass movements for the simple reason that the voices that are being raised are not backed by the masses. To make it worse, major issues which have surfaced lately, like the PDA movement, Regional Plan, SEZ and Mopa have all originated during the Congress rule. This has pushed the leaders on the back foot and has given enough ammunition to the coalition to fire back at the Congress.
On paper however, the Congress appears to be content with the occasional challenges they have been throwing. There have been sporadic voices keeping the coalition guessing. The Congress should take solace from the fact that the BJP State Executive committee acknowledged in its recent meeting that there are moves to destablise the government. This virtually would mean that the BJP is still threatened, knowing well that Congress is not in an easy position to topple the government for now. The Independents which they were heavily banking on soon after elections, are now sitting pretty with fairly good portfolios and this makes the equation even tougher.
More than the fight for power, it is the war within the party that is hurting the Congress for a long time now. The old guard and new face issue is still raging. There are partymen with linkages to other parties which have remained as stumbling blocks in their decision making and there are several leaders who have put themselves above the party with selfish motives. And there are some leaders who have tried it their own way, failed and have resigned to the system.
The new GPCC chief will have an uphill task ahead of him. It is not only the job of bringing together the warring sections and getting leaders back from their self-exile, but also building a mass base to re-establish the fast-fading mass connect, and more importantly infusing the party with new energy. These will remain major challenges facing the party even before they think of taking a shot at power and trying to dethrone the fragile-looking BJP-led government.
