New Delhi/Panji, Dec 14 The Congress party in Goa is now left with three MLAs as party's 14 MLAs have jumped the ship in less than five years and despite P. Chidambaram being the senior observer of the party and Dinesh Gundu Rao being In-charge, the exodus continues and sources say that some are moving ahead for promise of a ticket.
Francisco Sardinha, South Goa MP and former chief minister of the state said: "Ex-CM Ravi Naik was not being considered for ticket since his son moved to the BJP". He admitted that Trinamool Congress is denting Congress at the cost of Christian votes. The south Goa parliamentary constituency has around 20 assembly seats.
Several Christian leaders in the party feel that Congress should have given one post to a Christian either of the legislature party leader or of the state President, both occupied by non-Christ as Digambar Kamat is the CLP leader and Girish Chodankar is state president. The party leaders are questioning why Chodankar has been continued even when he lost with a huge margin.
Even some potential candidates are restless due to delay in announcement of the list and are opting for other parties as a leader put out that after the tickets are announced more chaos can be witnessed.
The party's decline in terms of exodus of MLAs in the Goa Assembly began just after a year of the state polls. In the first lot, two MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte left from Congress in October 2018 and joined the BJP.
But in July 2019, 10 out of 15 MLAs quit the Congress and merged their breakaway faction with the ruling BJP, which increased BJP's strength to 27 from 13. The Congress' strength went down to five. Now after two former Chief Ministers Luizinho Falerio and Ravi Naik left, the party has only three MLAs in outgoing Assembly.
The Trinamool Congress has tied up with MGP and is out to damage Congress as Sardinha says that AAP has gone down and now TMC is a major threat to the Congress.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is on a two day visit to Goa took a dig at the Congress party, accusing it of behaving like a sluggish 'zamindaar', while doing nothing to take on the ruling BJP.
Speaking at a party rally in South Goa on Monday, Banerjee also said that if Congress was willing to defeat the BJP, it should join the TMC-led alliance with regional parties.
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