Panaji : The Congress in Goa has to perform or perish, newly appointed state president Luizinho Faleiro said on Tuesday. Faleiro was speaking at a function in Panaji organised to mark his formal takeover of the state unit.
“Let me be frank. The results of the assembly elections and the Lok Sabha election were shockingly bad… the morale of our workers is at its lowest ebb…,” Faleiro said. “Our mission, bluntly, is to ‘perform or perish’,” Faleiro said, conceding that the party was going through “a critical stage”.
Faleiro, an All India Congress Committee general secretary and permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee, took over as new state president from John Fernandes earlier this month.
The Congress in the state won only nine seats in the 2012 state assembly elections.
Meanwhile another Congress leader in Goa exhorted the media not to report on squabbles between party leaders, even as she asked the party’s warring politicians not to wash their dirty linen before journalists.
State Congress vice president Pramod Salgaocar was speaking at a party function in Panaji held to welcome newly appointed state president Faleiro.
“Media persons should not report on our fights,” Salgaocar said.
Later, she told IANS that there were things of far greater significance in Goa to write about than the internal fights of the Congress party.
“What are these fights in the party you all write about? Aren’t there more important things to write?”
The comments come at a time when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has repeatedly and publicly asked think tanks and business groups in Goa to shun the media during discussions and deliberations.
Salgaocar also asked party leaders to stop washing their dirty linen before the media.
The Congress in Goa is known for its internal bickering, with several spats regularly playing out in the print and electronic media.
