By PTI
NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi revamped the party’s Goa unit on Thursday and appointed a young leader, Amit Patkar, as its new president.
Patkar will be assisted by Yuri Alemao as the working president of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC).
Gandhi also appointed Michael Lobo as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in the Goa Assembly, while Sankalp Amonkar has been appointed as the deputy CLP leader and Carlos Ferreira as the chief whip of the CLP.
“Congress president has appointed Amit Patkar as PCC president and Yuri Alemao as working president,” according to a release issued by the party.
In another communication, the party said Gandhi has appointed former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat as a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) with immediate effect.
The Congress president has also appointed Savio D’Silva as the DCC president for South How and Viren Shirodkar for the Goa North DCC.
Goa is the second state after Manipur where Gandhi has appointed a new party chief after the party’s poll debacle in five states.
The revamp came after the Congress failed to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coastal state.
Gandhi had asked the PCC chiefs of the five states that went to polls recently to resign in the wake of the party’s drubbing in the elections.
Goa convenor of the AAP Rahul Mhambrey resigned from all party posts on Thursday, including as its national spokesman, citing “personal reasons”, days after the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit put up a sub-par performance in the Assembly polls winning just two seats.
Mhambrey told PTI that he has resigned due to “personal reasons”.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said he has tendered his resignation as the party’s Goa convenor, a member of the national executive and also from the new post of national spokesman.
Mhambrey has been associated with the AAP for more than five years and led the party in the February 2022 Goa Assembly polls, which saw it winning two seats – Benaulim and Velim – out of the total 40.
Mhambrey, however, maintained he continues to be a member of the party.
