Chodankar vows to expose ‘Jodi No. 1’ out to sell Goa

Margao: Taking charge as the president of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) on Saturday, Girish Chodankar trained his guns on what he called ‘Jodi No. 1’ — chief minister Pramod Sawant and town and country planning minister Vishwajit Rane — accusing them of working to “sell Goa”, and vowing to expose their machinations ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.

“We want to assure the people that we will not allow Goa to be sold. We will keep a close watch on all their dealings and expose them,” Chodankar told reporters after AICC in-charge for Goa, Manickrao Thakre, handed over the charge to him at Congress House in Panaji where outgoing GPCC president Amit Patkar was conspicuously absent.

Chodankar pulled no punches in his assessment of state govt. “Govt has tarnished Brand Goa’s image over the last 15 years. Jobs aren’t being created, and whatever jobs are there, are up for sale,” he said.

In line with the Jaipur Declaration adopted by the AICC at one of its ‘chintan shivirs’, Chodankar announced the formation of 191 mandal committees across Goa within the next two months.

Chodankar said the party’s endeavour would be to form the next govt and give the people of Goa a “clean, transparent and pro-people govt”. “We have a strategy in place. It will be difficult for BJP to win even six seats in the next assembly elections. ,” he said.

Replying to a query on defection by Congress MLAs in the past, Chodankar said: “There is only one way we can prevent defection by elected MLAs — by hook or crook, we should ensure we have more than 21 MLAs. Then nobody will dare leave the party,” he said. He added that his disqualification petition before the Supreme Court, filed against defecting MLAs, was in its final stages. “I am sure the judgement will lead to a ban on defections,” he said.