Congress has finally released their Lok Sabha candidates, but in the process it has exposed its dearth of leaders. The party has been talking big on raising grassroot workers, but on the ground it’s been a sorry picture. Congress has betted on 73-year-old Francisco Sardinha in South Goa, a candidate which it chose to dump in the 2014 election. The former MP remained sidelined ever since then and it is a pity the choice finally was between an old horse and Congress Mahila President Pratima Coutinho, a name which is not well-known in electoral politics.
On the other side of the fence there is even more confusion. The party has selected its South-based party president Girish Chodankar for the North Goa LS ticket. This makes it amply clear that the party has run out of candidates and ideas. Congress may have smelt victory in Girish’s defeat at the August 2017 bypoll against Parrikar. However, applying that yardstick is illogical in a Lok Sabha contest which is spread across an entire district. On that count, North Goa remains a vastly unexplored territory for Girish.
The point of argument is not to belittle candidates, but to bring forth the fact that there is a huge leadership vacuum in the Congress. The second rung of leadership has not taken shape, and Girish, who himself has worked his way from the grassroots ever since he joined Congress in 1977, and his team have failed to groom new leaders.
At the bypoll, the scene is no different. Congress has relied heavily on BJP dropouts instead of focusing on their own leaders. In Shiroda the Congress was quick to opt for Mahadev Naik, a BJP contender who did not find favour with his party since there were political commitments made to new recruit Subhash
Shirodkar.
Come to Mapusa and again Congress spared no time to grab Sudhir Kandolkar, a BJP loyalist who fell out because he was denied a ticket. In fact, the Congress gave a heroic welcome to Kandolkar sensing that he has given them fresh hopes in Mapusa. That the Mapusa Congress Block remains a disgruntled lot is another side of the story.
In the Panaji bypoll too, the Congress has been betrayed by leaders like Atanasio alias Babush Monserrate time and again but has still been hobnobbing with them in the absence of its own home-grown leaders.
The mandate currently is with the Congress and a strong wave of resentment against the coalition government in the background bodes well for the grand old party. But ironically, they don’t have the leaders to take it forward and have relied on veterans and rebel legs to run their political race. On the other side, seasoned Congress leaders have been deserting the party in search of greener pastures. Every time the party sniffs a chance to make it through, its senior leaders have let them down. Add to this serious infighting and a complete lack of damage-control mechanism. Going forward, Congress needs to focus on grooming its own leaders rather than banking on rebels from other parties.
