PANAJI
The beleaguered Opposition Congress, depleted with a series of defections by over a dozen of its MLAs in the current legislature's term, is set for a bout of churning within as AICC's Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao begins his 4-day visit on Thursday ahead of an impending reshuffle of the party organisation.
Gundu Rao arrives on Thursday close on the heels of a couple of virtual meetings he had with top party leaders and functionaries, in connection with the preparations for the 2022 assembly polls due in February-March.
A reshuffle in the party's organisation is impending with the GPCC president Girish Chodankar expected to be replaced as the principal Opposition party attempts to shift gears to poll mode with just about eight months to go.
Chodankar meanwhile said Gundu Rao will begin his engagements by attending the party function to commemorate the Goa Revolution Day anniversary on June 18.
According to Chodankar, he is also expected to visit all the 40 assembly segments to invigorate party functionaries to get them in election mode.
The party meanwhile continued to face bickerings among its leaders.
On Wednesday, former Chief Minister and one of its five legislators, Ravi Naik said he will face the next elections on his individual strength and not on the party.
Naik, whose two sons have formally joined the BJP, has been at loggerheads with Chodankar and the two have had public spats in the recent past.
Another senior party leader and former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro stirred the Congress cauldron on Wednesday with sarcastic remarks that he is still waiting for other Congress leaders to form the government.
Faleiro who was State party president in 2017 was accused of sabotaging the party's chances of forming the government when the party emerged as the single largest with 17 seats.
"I was told by some of our MLAs that they want to form the government within 24 hours. Many of them were not coming if Luizinho Faleiro was there. So, I told them I will go to Delhi, I had already submitted my resignation, but I will talk to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others and ask them to accept my resignation. They did not accept it," Faleiro said while speaking to the media on Wednesday.
He said, he is still waiting for those Congress leaders who demanded his ouster to form a government in Goa.
Faleiro, who along with another Congress veteran from Salcete, Aleixo Sequeira, are said to be frontrunners for the party president's post, showed indifference when asked if he was in the race again.
