E-Paper
New Goa Congress president mulls ‘shadow cabinet’ to take on BJP govt
The new state chief of the Goa Congress Amit Patkar promised to help the party be an effective opposition, which he said will help catapult the party to power in the next elections.
PANAJI: The new state chief of the Congress in Goa, Amit Patkar, on Monday said that the party should set up a ‘shadow cabinet’ to be an effective opposition and to keep up the pressure on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Patkar was formally handed charge as state Congress president in the presence of party’s senior observer P Chidambaram, desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao and others in Panaji on Monday.
“Two years ago, the party was in shambles, the party lost 10 MLAs to the BJP and of the remaining five the other four went elsewhere so the truth is that we have grown from one to 11 thanks to (former leader of opposition) Digambar Kamat and Girish Chodankar,” Patkar said.
“We expect that our 11 MLAs will be effective under the leadership of (newly elected leader of opposition) Michael Lobo. I have a request for the CLP leader. Let us form a shadow cabinet allocating ministries to the 11 MLAs and give them the responsibilities and let them study and focus interventions and debate in the state assembly. So that there is pressure on the government,” Patkar said.
In the BJP 20 MLAs 12 are imported from the Congress and MGP. We need to seal our exports and whatever rumours are there have to be quelled. We will stay together and be a strong opposition in the assembly.
Patkar, who narrowly lost to minister Nilesh Cabral from the BJP by a margin of 600 votes, was chosen to succeed outgoing Congress president Girish Chodankar, who helmed the party since 2017 when he succeeded former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro. Having joined the Congress a few months ahead of the elections, Patkar is relatively a newbie in Goa’s political scene and was taunted by the BJP state president as someone who had bought the post in an auction.
Patkar said that he was ‘shocked’ that he was chosen to lead the Congress party in the state.
“The day I got the letter I was shocked. I saw a tweet with the letter and realised that it was true. I was shocked. This is a big responsibility,” he said.
“I would like to remind the BJP that I am a third generation Congressman and my family home was literally called the Congress house during the days of the first Congress president of Goa Purushottam Kakodkar. If today you slit my veins, Congress blood will flow out,” he said in response to the BJP’s taunt.
Earlier Chidambaram said that the party was rightly placing its future in young hands.
“We are handing over responsibility to a new generation of Congress leaders in Goa. A younger generation is taking over today. And that I believe is the right thing to do. India will remain a young country for the next decade or so and maybe beyond. And we have to prepare ourselves to entrust responsibilities to the young generation,” Chidambaram said.
“We must not flinch against this challenge. We must be brave, we must be courageous, we must be firm and my final appeal is we need more young people. They must have fire in their belly. They must have a passion for change. They must have enormous courage. They must be able to stand up to any challenge, any adversity and any difficulty and say our fight will not end until we achieve our goals,” Chidambaram said
