Rediff On The NeT: Goa Congress in ferment after defectors are rewarded

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December 31, 1998

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Goa Congress in ferment after defectors are rewarded

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The Congress may be gaining nationally, but it appears to be losing ground in Goa, especially after it formed the second government in three-and-a-half-months, readmitting defectors from the party who had joined hands with the Opposition to form a coalition government.

Dissent is brewing within the party after the returning prodigals were rewarded with positions and influential portfolios in the government. Even Congress general secretary Madhavrao Scindia, who is in charge of Goa, failed to pacify them during his recent visit to the state. Scindia was handed a memorandum in this regard, signed by around a hundred prominent Congressmen in the state.

Four defectors were readmitted into the party to form the Congress government; one of them, Dayanand Narvekar, is going to be made deputy chief minister. On the other hand, Churchill Alemao is being made senior vice-president.

"It is a sin to be loyal in the Congress nowadays. We don't want to be rewarded with a position, but we should not be insulted by imposing such defectors upon us," said one of the signatories. They were more furious when Scindia refused to consider their case.

The signatories pointed out that Pachmarhi convention resolution has been violated when the defectors were rewarded. But Scindia said this aspect was not part of the main declaration but a mere recommendation made by the organisational working group.

Scindia admits that such behaviour does not fit in with the party's principles, but said "certain circumstances" forced the hand of party president Sonia Gandhi. The party has empowered her to decide on such issues on case-to-case basis, he said, declining to divulge details.

He also rejected the demand that the Congress should immediately recommend dissolution of the state assembly and call an early election. But he admitted that the people did not want any party to rule, considering the kind of legislators who held fort in the state.

Supporting the stand taken by the state cabinet, which empowered Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro to recommend dissolution as and when time arises, Scindia preferred to wait and watch his party's performance for three months. "I think people are happy with Congress rule," he said.

Scindia's visit supports the belief that the Congress does not want to dissolve the assembly. It had threatened to do so, perhaps to silence disgruntled legislators who have been offered cabinet berths by Dr Wilfred de Souza, the former chief minister and leader of the Goa Rajiv Congress, if he manages to form a government again.

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