Goa: Congress appoints former Union minister P Chidambaram as poll observer

PANAJI: Congress on Monday appointed former Union finance minister P Chidambaram as senior election observer for Goa. The Rajya Sabha MP will also oversee the party’s election strategy for Goa, and steer deliberations over any probable alliance.
AICC general secretary K C Venugopal informed state party president Girish Chodankar about Chidambaram’s appointment, and many Congress workers said that the high-profile appointment indicates the seriousness that its national president Sonia Gandhi, as well as former president Rahul Gandhi, have attached to Goa for the 2022 elections.
Chidambaram has been appointed to “oversee election strategies and coordination for the upcoming assembly election in the state,” said Venugopal in the order.
Elections to the 40-member Goa legislative assembly are due in February next year, but parties are not ruling out early elections in the state.
The appointment of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram as senior election observer for Goa is a big boost for Congress in Goa to emerge victorious in the coming assembly elections. His experience and guidance will help motivate Congress functionaries to achieve victory in 2022,” said leader of opposition Digambar Kamat.
Kamat said that Chidambaram’s appointment indicates the importance that the Congress high command has attached to Goa.
In the 2017 Goa polls, Congress emerged as the single largest party, but failed to form the government due to poor coordination between the elected MLAs, AICC general secretary, Goa in-charge Digvijaya Singh, and the Congress central leadership. BJP seized the initiative and forged an alliance with Goa Forward Party, MGP and independent MLAs to form the government.
“Chidambaram is a very senior Congress leader who has been appointed to oversee the coming assembly elections. He will come here, study the matter and he will give his feedback,” said Navelim MLA and former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro.
Interestingly, Chidambaram’s appointment comes even as doubts continue over the role of Goa desk-in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao. According to Congress functionaries, Rao was asked to cancel his official appointments in Goa and head back to Bengaluru, and since then, there has been speculation that Rao will be replaced. There’s a buzz that former Kerala opposition leader Ramesh Chennitala could replace Rao.
The doubts over the desk in-charge, along with the uncertainty about Chodankar’s continuity, have created a vacuum of sorts in Goa.
“There is a lot of demand to remove the party head, and they may have decided that in the name of ‘election observer’ to send Chidambaram,” said a senior Congress functionary.