The Congress, looking to end its prolonged stint in the Opposition in Goa, is going for a leadership change by replacing Amit Patkar with Girish Chodankar as the state unit chief. The move is timed crucially, just months before the assembly polls due early next year even as speculation mounts that it could be advanced to end of 2026.
Patkar had taken over after Chodankar resigned as Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president following the party’s defeat in the 2022 assembly polls. Easing him out now has caused disgruntlement in the party.
Captain Viriato Fernandes (retired), the Congress MP from South Goa, has gone public with his unease about the way the leadership change was done. Functionaries such as party general secretary Manisha Usgaonkar and social media coordinator Shamila Siddiqui have quit in protest.
Patkar told INDIA TODAY he would speak to the media only after meeting the Congress leadership.
Chodankar is a grassroots Congress worker. He began his career as a booth head at Fatorda near Madgaon in the 1990s. He was associated with the National Students Union of India and Youth Congress. Recently, as the party in-charge for Tamil Nadu, Chodankar is considered to have been instrumental in the Congress striking a post-poll alliance with actor-turned-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) and join the government in the state.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) Goa in-charge and former Maharashtra minister Manikrao Thakre said the leadership change had been discussed before the zilla panchayat elections held last December, and that Patkar was in the loop.
Thakre said one factor that worked in Chodankar’s favour was that he hailed from the OBC Bhandari community. The Bhandaris are the biggest caste cohort in Goa. “We cannot afford to leave out the OBCs,” Thakre said.
While leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao and Capt. Fernandes are Christians, the Congress has also appointed MLAs Carlos Ferreira and Altone D’Costa and senior leader M.K. Shaikh as working presidents.
In the 2022 elections, the ruling BJP, despite being on a sticky wicket, won 20 of the 40 seats, largely due to the presence of the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC), which split the anti-incumbency vote and queered the pitch for the Congress. Patkar had lost to Nilesh Cabral of the BJP by just 672 votes as the RGP and AAP cut into the anti-incumbency votes.
The AAP won two seats: Venzy Viegas defeated former chief minister Churchill Alemao from Benaulim while Cruz Silva took the Velim seat. The TMC and MGP had fought the polls as allies. While the TMC drew a blank, the MGP joined the state cabinet.
In September 2022, eight of the 11 Congress MLAs, including former chief minister Digambar Kamat, leader of the Opposition Michael Lobo, and former minister Alexio Sequeira defected to the BJP, bolstering the ruling party’s presence in the legislative assembly.
Now, after being in the Opposition for 15 years, the Congress fancies its chances in the 2027 elections. The Opposition feels it can benefit from the growing discontent in the state over issues such as dilution of the Regional Plan 2021, which is widely feared to cause environmental and ecological damage to Goa by opening the doors to rampant development; law and order; and lack of employment opportunities. The meltdown of the TMC and AAP may also reduce competition from these parties in the Goa polls.
Catholics, who form around 25 per cent of Goa’s population, may also coalesce around the Congress. They have strong numbers in the ‘Old Conquest’ region, which comprises Tiswadi, Bardez and Salcette. The Salcette taluka in South Goa accounts for eight of the 40 assembly segments. In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress retained the South Goa Lok Sabha seat largely due to the consolidation of Catholics, who form about 36 per cent of the population in Salcette, and Muslims, who are estimated to number 10 per cent in the area.
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