Goa Congress gets a reboot and rattles the ruling BJP

Congress’ Election Observer for Goa P Chidambaram called it a generational shift while Goa BJP’s President accused that the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President’s job was sold – sums up the political churn that the new Congress leadership in Goa has created. The three-week-long torturous wait for Goa Congress’ leaders got over as AICC announced the new line-up of leaders that shall lead the party into Parliament Elections 2024 and Assembly Elections 2027 on the last day of March. And the change is a gamechanger of sorts in many ways.

A shaken and stirred Congress

For the first time in Goa Congress’ history, there will be a new man in Congress will be at the helm of the Goa Pradesh Congress as well as the Congress Legislative Party in the Goa Assembly. 45-year-old Michael Lobo, former BJP Minister and Calangute MLA who promised the party five seats and delivered four in the crucial Bardez Taluka (where Congress was drawing a blank over many years) becomes the new CLP Leader. Lobo succeeds former Congress CM Digambar Kamat whose performance in the last Assembly Term as CLP Leader proved lacklustre as the party floundered to take on the Govt. The party instead entrusted the responsibility to the protégé of former CM Manohar Parrikar who as Leader of the Opposition between 2007-12 not only rattled the Govt but laid the foundation for a BJP Govt that has since been in power. Lobo has already made Congress Party’s intentions clear sending shivers down the ruling BJP’s spines. 

Lobo’s elevation also marks the return of Goa Congress to its secular and Bahujan Samaj (Backward Classes) roots as he becomes the highest-ranking minority leader at the helm in the past 22 years. With an excellent ability to rally MLAs and Parties across the different spectrum who carries no ego and pretences as leaders of the past, Lobo also signals the return of the party to the grassroots. He says “There won't be just press conferences now. That will not work and we will have a proactive approach”. A clear-cut departure for a media-obsessed Congress that slowly gave space to other parties to ‘divide’ votes.

The new kids on the block

Prima Facie, Amit Patkar seems a friendly neighbourhood lad. Scratch the surface and you find what the Congress in Goa wanted as a poster boy – a young and restless, cold calculated electoral warmonger who almost cost Goa’s former Power Minister Nilesh Cabral his Curchorem seat. At 38 years, Patkar could not only be the youngest party President for Congress in Goa but also be the representative from the South and most importantly, the highest ever Political Leader in the state from the Mining Areas who ascends the chair at a time when Goa Govt is clueless and procrastinating in restarting mining banned by BJP itself.

The suave and soft-spoken commercial pilot MLA from Cuncolim Yuri Alemao becomes Working President from South while the highest member-maker for Congress Savio D’Silva who lost narrowly to AAP’s Cruz Silva in Velim in South Goa District President. The unassuming Viren Shirodkar becomes the new North Goa District President.

In the Assembly too former Attorney General Carlos Alvares Ferreira from Aldona is the new Chief Whip and Sankalp Amonkar the Deputy CLP.

With veteran Digambar Kamat now becoming a permanent invitee to Congress Working Committee, the ‘High Command’ did its due diligence, took its time but has eventually delivered a fresh, new lineup to lead Goa into the future. Their challenge – undoing a disastrous legacy of party hopping, conspiring and conniving Goa Congress.