Exodus in Trinamool: Will the party stick to commitment in Goa?

THE GOAN NETWORK | APRIL 27, 2022, 12:27 AM IST

The Trinamool Congress which suffered a drubbing at the recent elections in Goa is now facing a churn with leaders quitting and distancing themselves from the party. A day after Kavita Kandolkar quit the party, party vice-president Kishor Narvekar put in his papers. Indications are that the Kiran Kandolkar would exit the party any time soon. If we may recall, former Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao had last month called his joining the TMC “a major mistake”.

The exodus from the TMC was obvious after the party’s electoral debacle because it had in its ranks leaders who had sought rehabilitation to pursue individual goals. However, two questions need to be looked at here: Firstly, whether leaders have failed the TMC or vice-versa since the TMC experiment and their brand of politics has been rejected by the electorate giving the party a big zero at the hustings. Secondly, whether the party which descended into Goa with Prashant Kishore-led IPAC in tow screaming its way with banners and posters across the length and breadth of the State and promising a new dawn, once again fading away from the Goa horizon, the way it did post the 2012 defeat.

The 2022 entry of TMC was seen as a political game-changer with leaders who were projected as torch-bearers proclaiming TMC as a saviour and even drawing vague comparisons of party supremo Mamata Banerjee with Goddess Durga. The irony is that these are the very leaders who are now bitter about their defeats and have started picking holes in the party ranks and the IPAC which handled strategies and managed the groundwork.

The electoral results have highlighted the stark reality that party-hoppers and defectors have been summarily rejected, no matter the political clout they enjoyed or the larger-than-life image they portrayed. The TMC experimented largely with heavyweights who fell out of favour with other parties little realising that there is palpable electoral anger against them simmering in the background. The TMC not only over-rated leaders whom they imported but at the same time failed miserably to understand the mood of the voter.

It is against this background that the party need to reinvent and re-organise if it is serious about Goa. The party has announced that it has decided to restructure the entire AITC State Committee and would appoint an ad-hoc committee soon with a line that it reiterates “the solemn commitment” given towards working for the people of Goa and their well-being. That is reassuring, but the slow hesitant pace at which decisions are being taken are questions that linger.

The 2022 election should be an eye-opener for TMC, and the biggest takeaway should be that there are no shortcuts to political glory, at least not in Goa. A party cannot vacate the political space after defeats, abandon its workers and return only for elections with outlandish promises. If there is seriousness, the party should have acted immediately with an electoral post-mortem fixing responsibility. The silence of the leadership is baffling and clouds the seriousness of its commitment. If TMC is genuinely interested in Goa, then the high command must realise the fact that it has a long way to go and must get into rebuilding with workers who will uphold the ideology and vision of the party. 


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