On August 25, 2017, the auspicious day of Ganesh Chaturthi, Narayan Rane, former chief minister and Congress leader offered his prayers to Lord Ganesha at his house in Juhu. Ganesha is considered as the God, who helps those who worship him to overcome difficulties and obstacles in life.
“Ganesha gives me strength. He has given me a lot and I am grateful to him,” said Rane. “Every decision of mine; whether it is a political or professional one, will have the blessings of Lord Ganesha.”
Narayan Rane's political journey started with Shiv Sena and he went on to succeed Manohar Joshi as Maharashtra chief minister in 1999. He joined the Congress in 2005 and had been a minister handling various important portfolios of revenue and industry till 2014. Nilesh Rane, his son, was a Congress MP from Sindhudurg during 2009-2014. Rane lost the assembly election in 2014 and Nilesh lost his parliament seat the same year while Nitesh, Rane's younger son, won from Malwan assembly constituency. Rane then lost a by-poll from Bandra constituency in Mumbai, but was fielded as a Congress candidate and was elected as a member of the legislative council in 2016. Since 2014, Rane and his sons have been critical about the state leadership.
The talks around Rane’s plans to join BJP began in January 2017 and it got further substantiated when pictures of him and Nitesh Rane travelling with Devendra Fadnavis in Ahmedabad to meet Amit Shah in April were widely circulated. Rane had denied meeting Shah with Fadnavis and had said, “I was in Ahmedabad for my personal work and happened to meed Fadnavis there. But I didn’t meet Amit Shah.”
There were also talks that a section of BJP that doesn’t want Rane to be inducted had leaked the information and circulated the picture. But time didn't permit BJP to induct him then as the Presidential election was in the offing and the party needed the votes of the Sena for whom Rane is bête noire. The induction got delayed till August.
Devendra Fadnavis met Modi and Amit Shah last week during the chief minister's conference in Delhi. He met Shah separately later to discuss Rane’s induction. “It is true that many BJP leaders from the state, especially the second layer of leaders and the most of the core committee members are opposed to Rane’s induction. The contention is that Rane’s style of functioning doesn’t match with the BJP’s culture and the benefit of inducting him is not beyond one district of Sindhudurg where he got defeated while one of his sons won,” said a very senior BJP leader.
Congress had chosen not to comment on this issue until recently. Ashok Chavan, state congress president said, “Opportunists change loyalties and ideologies whenever it suits them. This gives a space for the ideologically committed loyalists and new faces to rise to the occasion and defeat the fascists.”
A few RSS leaders are also opposed to the idea of allowing Rane’s sons to join the party as both had criticised RSS in the past. Nilesh Rane was especially critical about the state government’s decision to honour Babasaheb Purandare with “Maharashtra Bhushan”, the state’s highest award. But the senior BJP leader said, “Now RSS alone doesn’t decide everything in BJP. National leaders understand that the BJP will have to become ‘congress yukt’ to make India ‘congress mukt’.”
Rane is likely to get revenue or PWD portfolios after he joins the BJP. Amit Shah is expected to visit Mumbai in the last week of August to decide the final modalities. Chandrakant Patil, present revenue and PWD minister said, “We would welcome Rane sahib if he joins BJP. Induction of a former chief minister is a big decision and only Amit Shah can take the decision.”
