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 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 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, 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.
Gandhi would have benefitted, rather, from talking specifics. For
instance, strengthening of the RTI 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.
