Congress Margao leaders follow the footsteps of their leader, Digambar Kamat, who quit the Congress on Wednesday to embrace the BJP.
MARGAO
A day after the Margao Congress MLA Digambar Kamat quit the Congress to embrace the BJP, the Congress now grapples with the prospects of party workers deserting the organization in Margao.
This became evident when the president of Margao Block Congress Committee Gopal Naik tendered his resignation from the post of President as well as from the primary membership of the party with immediate effect. Margao Mahila Congress Chief Pratima Bandekar and Margao Youth Congress President Siddhant Gadekar has also followed suit, as the duo quit the post as well as the primary membership of the Congress.
Gopal has sent in his resignation letter to the South Goa district Congress Committee president on Thursday.
Sources said that the development in the Margao block Congress party was on expected lines since Gopal and ardent Congress workers had given all clear signal to Kamat at a block meeting to take any decision he deemed fit citing humiliation of the Margao MLA by the party leadership.
In fact, sources said a number of party workers and leaders from Margao are expected to quit the party in the wake of Wednesday’s political developments when the Margao MLA along with seven other MLAs defected from the Congress to join the BJP.
Incidentally, Gopal was one of the prominent Congress workers who was besides Kamat outside his residence on Wednesday hours after the Margao MLA embraced the saffron brigade. He was once again seen with the group of Margao Municipal CouncilLors owing allegiance to the Kamat group when Damu Shirodkar had come to file his nomination papers for the post of MMC Chairperson.
Incidentally, questions have been raised in Congress circles why the party did not move quickly to dissolve the Congress Margao blocks, knowing well that the workers holding positions in the city, may quit the party along with Kamat.
This question assumes further significance given that the party had acted swiftly to file a disqualification petition against the Margao MLA, but did not act fast to dissolve the panels and induct new blood to head the organization.
Incidentally, sources pointed out that not all the prominent party workers in the city may follow Kamat in the BJP. Some of them may now even sport the saffron scarves, but one thing is clear that they are expected to remain loyal to the Margao MLA.
A senior Congress leader conceded in private that Kamat had controlled the party organization in the city since the time he had embraced the party around 17 years ago. “Kamat has been controlling the party block and other frontal organizations over the last decade and half. Like in almost all the constituencies, wherein the MLAs had called the shot in the appointments in key positions in the party, Margao was no different”, the leader said.
Gopal told The Goan that he and the heads of the Mahila and Youth Congress has quit the party in protest over the way Kamat was treated and humiliated by the party. “The party did not make Kamat the Opposition leader, but the post was given to a new comer in the party. The leaders then filed a disqualification against Kamat. After Kamat has quit the party, we have also decided to quit the Congress”, he added.
