This story is from June 04, 2016
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee
(GPCC) president Luizinho Faleiro, who was drafted by party president Sonia Gandhi about 18 months ago to put the organization back in shape, is grappling to find the bricks to rebuild a disoriented party. He speaks his mind in a free-wheeling interview with K R Sreenivas and Murari Shetye. Excerpts: TOI: How do you propose to rebuild your party given the current situation with senior and junior leaders not seeing eye-to-eye and with just about eight months to go for elections? Luizinho Faleiro: I returned one-and-a-half years ago to Goa on the request of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to help the party in the state. Senior leader Pratapsingh Rane had requested her (Sonia) to send me to Goa. Initially, I was not happy to come back to Goa. My initial task was to rebuild the party, put the organization in place, bring unity, discipline and consolidation. It has been a Herculean task and I am happy that it is in place now. I have formed 16 cells like NRI global Goan cell, and this has happened for the first time in India. The people in Goa are disenchanted because the BJP promised the sky. Just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been the excellent merchant of dreams, the BJP is also selling lot of dreams in Goa. Are you confident that the Congress will able to fight to win the 2017 elections? Definitely, I feel that you require a strong force to defeat the BJP and there is no doubt that the Congress is the only force in Goa who can fight the BJP. Will the Congress fight the assembly election under your leadership? That is not important, because by the grace of god, I have been the chief minister of Goa and when I worked at the national level, I was directly or indirectly instrumental in getting Congress elected in five of nine states. Now, the important thing is people of Goa need good governance. We have prepared a roadmap and very soon we will give out a vision document and we will come out with the failure report of the BJP government. Yatish Naik has been appointed as chairperson to prepare failure reports of the BJP government. The BJP government has failed on all fronts. We will come out with our manifesto soon. Goa is marching backward. Our financial situation is bad. Will the party declare its chief ministerial candidate before elections? I had been a member of the Congress working committee (CWC), in fact I am the first Goan to be a member of the CWC. Normally, we don’t announce the chief ministerial candidate because we leave it to legislature party to take a decision. You spoke about realization of certain failures within the Congress, can you say what they are? We did some introspection on why we lost and we identified where we had gone wrong. We have a plan for the poor, we will provide free water supply. Will you supply water free of cost to all? Not necessary for all the people, but we will supply cheaper water to all and those who are poor will get water free of cost. In the 2012 assembly elections, people of the state were against the Congress. There is still a lack of trust in the Congress in Goa. How will you convince people to vote for the party? I can say Goans are intelligent. Goans are secular-minded. Goans know what they want and if people of Goa have voted against the Congress in the last elections and elected the BJP, the same people will this time take a judicious decision and bring back the Congress. We will go house-to-house from May 21 to July 31, identify problems, and the candidates will emerge from the people. Why should the people of Goa trust Congress when there are options like AAP and Goa Forward? In a democracy, every party, individual, and citizen of the country has a right to go to the people for elections. I think we are gaining the trust of people. Will you have many new candidates contesting on a Congress ticket this time? In any party, there must be natural growth and every party must have first rank, second rank, third rank and top rank leaders, and it is the responsibility and duty of the party to create leaders because they cannot come from the sky. They have to be nurtured, promoted and we are doing that. Now, all the spokespersons of the party are young people. So will you get rid of some of the former representatives of the party and bring in fresh faces? Where is the question of me getting rid of them, the people of Goa got rid of them (laughing). That means those who have lost the last assembly election will not be given a ticket? While it is desirable to promote new faces and a young leadership, one has to be realistic at the same time. Elections cannot be fought only on that. Finally, you have to go to the people and find out what they want. That is what we are going to do during the next one-and-half month. There is talk that former home minister Ravi Naik has been isolated in the party. Will he be given the ticket? Naik has not been isolated in the party. He was our candidate for Lok Sabha elections. Last week, he had a meeting in Ponda and around 3,000 youth attended. Giving a party ticket to Naik is not in my hands. There is a process in which a person is screened at block level, district level, pradesh level and central level before a party ticket is given. Are you saying that nobody is guaranteed a party ticket and the selection is done purely on merit? The tickets will not come from above, the tickets will come from constituencies as far as possible. We will not make the mistake of announcing candidates at the last moment. Wherever possible, we will declare our party candidate early So has the Congress decided a date by when the candidates are finalized? The process has already started and constituency-level process will be completed by July 31 and thereafter it will go to district and then the pradesh level. The pradesh committee will send the names to central election committee. By October, the names of our candidates should be out. Is the Congress thinking of a Bihar-like mahagathbandhan in Goa? There are only 40 seats to contest. If you give independents 16 seats and eight seats to NCP, what will we do with our sitting MLAs. My task in Goa was to build the party, not to dissolve it. I am not saying I am not open to an alliance but we will take appropriate decisions at the appropriate time. Does the Congress have a better chance to win the elections if there is a one-on-one fight with the BJP rather than a multi-cornered contest? We will look at it at closer to the elections. You have not criticized former chief minister and defence minister Manohar Parrikar for the functioning of the government in Goa. Any reasons? I know he is the defence minister, but do you want us to take out our guns and shoot at him (laughing). We are criticizing the government left, right and centre. Attacking Parrikar for the sake of attacking is not my cup of tea and not my style of politics. Is there any plan to take Vijai Sardesai back into the Congress? Individuals are not important for the party. Anybody is free to join the Congress as it is a movement. What about St Cruz MLA Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate and former PWD minister Churchill Alemao rejoining the party? (laughing), I think we have taken a decision on Monserrate and why are you asking me that question again. The party has to take realistic decisions. What can we expect from the Congress in terms of strategy during the next few months? Perform or perish. We have to work hard. The Church has always played an important role in electoral politics of Goa. The last time, the Church did not support the Congress. Your comments? We are a secular party. I will not comment on what the Church will do or will not do, but the last time the BJP had assured a solution on medium of instruction (MoI). They had given many assurances but have not lived up to their assurances. It is up to the Church to decide. I agree with you, last time, yes, we had to face the wrath of the people, including the Church. You have always said that the BJP has made Goa a sin capital because of casinos. What will the Congress do to remove that tag? Casinos have come mostly during BJP rule, but there are also those that came during Congress time. All licences were not given by the Congress. The policy was made by our government and I am sorry for it. Many Goans are affected because of the casinos. Will Congress ensure that casinos are moved out of Goa? We will take a decision in favour of the people and if we feel that something has been done wrongly, either during Congress or BJP rule, we will correct it. This time, we should have the magnanimity of telling the people, yes, this is the area we made the mistake in, and it should be changed.