the goan I network
PANAJI
The Congress in Goa is staring at uncertainty over finding a replacement for its State chief, Girish Chodankar, who put in his papers on Friday and top leaders appear clueless on what is in store.
Several party leaders were unwilling to speak on record on who could likely replace Chodankar and those who did, only said the Goa situation was symptomatic of the leadership crisis the party is facing at the Centre where current president Rahul Gandhi is adamant and firm on not taking back his decision of quitting as the national president.
Chodankar while tendering his resignation in the letter addressed to Gandhi had said that his (Gandhi’s) firm decision not to withdraw his resignation made it morally binding on him to also quit and collectively take responsibility for the party’s poor showing in last month’s Lok Sabha elections.
All India Congress Committee Secretary in-charge of Goa, Dr Chella Kumar did not respond to calls and senior leaders indicated that unless the question over Gandhi’s resignation and his refusal to take it back is resolved, the party is unlikely to address the question of replacing any of the leaders who have resigned from party positions across the country, including Chodankar.
“It is a problem confronting the party nationally. Almost all have either resigned or offered to resign in the wake of Rahul Gandhi’s decision to resign. Even the entire Congress Working Committee has offered to resign to give him (Gandhi) a free hand to reorganise or restructure the party,” senior party leader and Navelim MLA, Luizinho Faleiro said.
Faleiro, a former chief minister and currently AICC general secretary in-charge of North East States, was hopeful that the party’s senior leadership will soon come out with a solution.
Chodankar, who was party of Rahul Gandhi’s team at Delhi as AICC secretary, was drafted as GPCC chief in late 2017 and was instrumental in infusing fresh blood at the organisational level in the
party. On the electoral canvass, however, the party lacked the edge and managed to win only one of the four seats where Assembly bye-elections were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections in May and regained the South Goa parliamentary seat.
In his tenure, the party also lost two MLAs - Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte - who quit to join the BJP in 2018.
Chodankar, during his stint was also faced with balancing between the party’s old guard and younger generation leaders. The wedge in the party was most visible when its senior most leader in Goa Pratapsing Rane was publicly ridiculed by his own partymen for his ‘toilet cleaner’ remark to highlight Goans migrating to UK while discussing the mining ban triggered job loss crisis in the Goa legislative assembly.
