MLA's message puts leadership in tight spot
MAPUSA
Revolutionary Goans Party’s simmering internal tensions appear to have entered another delicate phase after St Andre MLA Viresh Borkar formally communicated his inability to attend the crucial 3-6 pm meeting slot conveyed by the party leadership.
In an official message addressed to the party office bearers on Monday, Borkar cited “pre-scheduled engagements beyond Goa” linked to discussions that “cannot be casually displaced at this stage,” while pointedly observing that “political time and clock time are often different things.”
Though carefully worded and diplomatically framed, the communication is being read within political circles as more than a scheduling conflict.
The lone RGP MLA stopped short of outright defiance, reiterating his “full respect, commitment and clarity of intent” towards the party structure, but simultaneously pushed back against what appeared to be a centrally dictated timeline for engagement.
His concluding line – “At times, delays are not distance. They are merely timing waiting for the correct room” – has particularly triggered speculation over the widening trust deficit between the party hierarchy led by RGP president Manoj Parab and its only legislator.
The latest exchange adds another layer to the growing perception that all is not well within the regional outfit.
Over the past several weeks, political murmurs around differences in communication, organisational functioning and strategic direction have steadily gathered momentum, even as both camps have publicly avoided open confrontation.
For the party leadership, the challenge now is no longer merely about convening a meeting, but about managing the optics of authority versus accommodation.
A regional party with a limited legislative footprint can ill-afford prolonged internal signalling of discord, especially when political rivals are closely watching for opportunities to exploit instability.
At the same time, Borkar’s calibrated language suggests the door to reconciliation remains deliberately open. He neither rejected the meeting nor distanced himself from the party. Instead, he sought to reposition the engagement on terms that preserve both political dignity and negotiating space.
The coming days will therefore be crucial. If handled through backchannel coordination and political pragmatism, the present friction could still be contained as an internal adjustment within a young regional formation finding its balance between leadership structure and individual political weight.
However, if the messaging hardens further in public, the episode risks deepening into a larger battle over authority, autonomy and the future direction of the RGP itself.
