blurb:
While the Congress leadership in Goa has promised a ‘Goem centric manifesto, Rahul’s assurance for Goans was ‘vote for Congress and we will give you a shining Goa in five years’
Something was oddly amiss at the much-awaited first public meeting of All India Congress Committee Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, who fell short of striking a chord at Fatorda even while the elections are knocking at the doors. Instead of singing a local kantar, Gandhi strummed the veena, the national musical instrument. As a result, apart from the experience of hearing him speak live, Gandhi’s first Goan audience didn’t take home anything that would last till the State goes to polls in 2017. His 35-minute speech focused mainly on the failure of demonetisation and made very few references to the present socio-political and economic turmoil in the poll-bound State of Goa. Such was the disconnect that the speech could very well be transplanted to a stage in Uttar Pradesh or even Punjab without much ado.
In reference to the woes springing from demonetisation, Gandhi merely said that it is the fishing and tourism sectors in Goa which have been affected. In the same breath, he mentioned Pune’s automobile sector, Punjab’s bicycle industry and Kanpur’s leather market. While the Congress leadership in Goa has promised a ‘Goem centric manifesto, Rahul Gandhi’s assurance for Goans was ‘vote for Congress and we will give you a shining Goa in five years’, much reminiscent of the National Democratic Alliance’s campaign slogan of 2004.
Prior to the meeting, Goa Congress President Luizinho Faleiro had dropped a clue that Gandhi’s speech would focus primarily on the issues faced by youth, who form a considerable proportion of the party's existing vote bank. The Lok Sabha 2014 campaign was, after all, about ‘yuva shakti’. But this crucial issue was given a miss along with all issues quintessentially Goan, which have found prominent mention in the widely distributed chargesheet of the Congress party against the present ruling alliance. In fact, Gandhi spoke neither about Goa’s ruling alliance nor about the possibility of the opposition forming an alliance. What is even more surprising, shocking even, is that he chose to touch upon the issue of corruption. The electoral crater inflicted on Congress by the asteroid called corruption, which led to its political extermination and triggered off mass extinction in State Assemblies, is a marker which is difficult to forget easily.
That said, a strong statement over the issue could have opened the bargain for Congress in this small State. Assuring a corruption-free government does not amount to a strong statement on the issue which has proved to be the Achilles’ heel for Congress.The party vice-president would have benefitted, rather, from talking specifics. For instance, strengthening of the Right to Information Act, a Congress success; bringing political parties under its gambit, making all political donations, big or small, transparent and the like. But then again, there can only be one first even when it comes to public meetings.
