PANAJI
All India Congress Committee in-charge of Goa Dinesh Gundu Rao on Tuesday arrived in Goa for a two-day visit with the aim of reorganizing the party following a thorough analysis of its rout in the recent Zilla Panchayat polls.
He spent the day in Panaji and Mapusa meeting party leaders and workers and is expected to be in Margao on Wednesday for an interaction with the ZP candidates and workers from frontal organizations of the party.
Speaking to reporters in Panaji, Rao stated, “I will be reviewing ZP results and we will strategize how to strengthen the party organization. The main focus would be on how to regain the trust of Goans.”
When asked about the resounding defeat suffered by Congress at the recent ZP polls, the AICC in-charge of Goa blamed the delay in announcement of the polls by the BJP government.
“It was fixed. They knew when the election would take place, they had already managed many things and we didn’t have much to even campaign. Besides, they made all kinds of promises like 10,000 jobs, restarting mining and spent money like water,” he stated.
Rao insisted that though the party will definitely introspect, it expected better results considering that its candidates worked very hard.
“Our leaders should get involved more in the campaigning and elections. We will take suitable measures in the future. We need to put in the right kind of effort and return to the people. We will reorganize the party, take up the burning issues in Goa, coal transportation, mining, price rise, LPG rate hike, unemployment and so on,” he said.
The senior national Congress leader acknowledged the receipt of the resignation submitted by Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar.
When asked about how he plans to handle it, Rao said, “the party high command will decide what to do. To those blaming the defeat on Girish, success has got many fathers but failure is an orphan. We should bear collective responsibility for whatever results we get. In Congress, everyone is free to express their view.”
