Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday (December 10) was greeted by a spate of resignation from party leaders and workers as she landed in Goa to launch the campaign for assembly elections in the state. She interacted with youths as well as tribal Women, at Morpirla village in Goa.
While Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is appealing to people to join and vote the Congress, leaders and workers of the Goa unit are confused about the party’s proposed alliance with like-minded forces to unseat the BJP from power in the 2022 assembly election.
A group of Congress leaders from the Porvorim assembly constituency, having the support of Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte, resigned from the party. Leaders claimed that the Congress leadership lacks seriousness to contest Goa assembly polls scheduled the next year.
Gupesh Naik, a former zilla panchayat member who is leading the Porvorim group, told the media that the Congress party has not shown seriousness to contest upcoming Goa elections. He alleged that Congress has become a non-starter due to the attitude of some of its leaders.
Senior Congress leader from Curtorim of South Goa, Moreno Rebelo too has resigned from the post of secretary of state unit as well as from the primary membership of the party.
Rebelo in his resignation letter addressed to Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar questioned the promotion of Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco as working president of the party.
Rebelo said that Reginaldo never participated in any party activity for the last four-and-half years. He abused the party leaders and also worked against the official party candidate of Curtorim and Raia in the recently held Zilla Panchayat election. Besides, Reginaldo was declared as a party candidate by senior leaders during a recently held convention.
Conflicts and confusions prevail among top leaders also
Last week, the Congress and Goa Forward Party (GEP) agreed to forge an alliance for the assembly polls. The decision was taken in the presence of Rahul Gandhi. Opposition leader Digambar Kamat, GFP president Vijai Sardesai and Congress’ Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao held a meeting with Rahul Gandhi and decided to come together.
But the AICC Goa election in-charge P. Chidambaram is clueless about the Congress GFP alliance. He said that GFP had only extended support to Congress and refused to term it as an alliance at this stage. Mr Chidambaram had said, “So far we had one party leader Vijai Sardesai who came to Delhi and said, ‘in order to defeat BJP, my party offers support to the Congress party’. Rahul Gandhi said we accept the support. All other details have to be discussed further.”
Within minutes of Chidambaram’s statement, Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted said that he has invited Vijai Sardesai for a meeting with the Goa Congress president and others on December 11.
I have invited Sri @VijaiSardesai, President of @Goaforwardparty for a meeting with Sri @girishgoa, President of @INCGoa and others on 11/12/21, 10.00am at Congress Election Office, Patto Plaza, Panjim.
— Dinesh Gundu Rao/ದಿನೇಶ್ ಗುಂಡೂರಾವ್ (@dineshgrao) December 9, 2021
