Ending months of speculation, Congress strongman in Maharashtra Narayan Rane on Thursday formally announced his resignation from the party, ending his decade plus-long association with the party.
Mr. Rane resigned from the primary membership of the Congress besides stepping down from his seat in the Legislative Council.
“I do not run after posts...they come to me. Not only the Konkan region, but the party will see a massive exodus across,” said Mr. Rane in a show of strength in Kudal town in Sindhudurg district. He claimed that 25 Congress corporators across the State had also quit in solidarity with him.
However, he remained non-committal on the much-anticipated question of whether he would join the BJP or float a political party of his own.
“A decision would be made by Dussehra...one should take things easily...Many [political parties] are clamouring for my entry,” he said.
To tour State
Mr. Rane announced his intention to tour the State, beginning with Nagpur on Fridayand covering Vidarbha and Marathwada in the next few days.
Mr. Rane expressed bitterness over his dashed hopes and hollow promises made by the Congress brass, which repeatedly passed him over for the post of Chief Minister at least four times.
“I went to a national party with great hopes...yet, during all my 12 years with the Congress, they never made use of my capacity. Instead, I was insulted,” he alleged.
Mr. Rane expressed disappointment over how he was ‘overlooked’ time and again in favour of Vilasrao Deshmukh, Ashok Chavan and Prithviraj Chavan. He also described how he was overlooked for the top job of Maharashtra Congress chief no less than four times, despite repeated assurances by top Congress leaders like Ahmed Patel that he would get it.
“At one time, three Central observers, Pranab Mukherjee, Digvijay Singh and A.K.Antony, too approved of my name… 48 legislators supported me as their chief minister of choice…yet, all this came to nothing,” he said.
Mr. Rane, who was once a Shiv Sena strongman, ruled his fiefdom of Kudal, by being its legislator for six terms. However, he was trounced comprehensively by the Sena’s Vaibhav Naik in the 2014 Assembly elections.
Since then, his political fortunes within the party have steadily been on the wane, marred by bickering and wrangling.
Last week, Mr. Rane's bitter rival Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan, in conjunction with the party’s State in-charge, Mohan Prakash, decided to dissolve the district committee in Sindhudurg. This hit Mr. Rane hard, as most of the members in the committee were believed to be his loyal aides. This led him to openly censure Mr. Chavan and Mr. Prakash, among his bitterest critics within the party.
The overtures towards defecting to the BJP began since March this year with Mr. Rane’s visit to Delhi where he allegedly conferred with BJP brass like Nitin Gadkari. State Tourism Minister Jaykumar Rawal 's ‘friendly chat’ the next month at Mr. Rane’s residence in Sindhudurg only lent credence to swirling rumours of his joining the BJP.
Meeting with Amit Shah
They climaxed with his hush-hush meeting with BJP president Amit Shah in Gujarat in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Recently, Mr. Fadnavis again met with Mr. Rane during the Ganesha festivities.
Despite Mr. Rane’s repeatedly brushing aside suggestions of switching allegiances, few in political circles were deceived, commenting that his entry into the BJP party was merely a matter of time.
Earlier this year, Mr. Rane met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to seek redressal of his ‘grievances’ to no avail.
Defeat in 2014 polls
In the 2014 Assembly polls, Mr. Rane lost to Mr. Naik by a margin of more than 10,200 votes in a result that ultimately led to a Sena renascence in the Konkan region.
Despite Mr. Rane’s long shadow over the coastal Malwan belt, a surge of popular anger against his strong-arm tactics, coupled with sanction to controversial ecological projects in the verdant Sindhudurg, led to his undoing.
Fallouts with his former aides-turned-nemesis, Rajan Teli and Ravindra Phatak, and bête noire Deepak Kesarkar [the Sena] further undercut his hold over the region.
Ever since his ignominious defeat and the steady erosion of the Congress in the recently concluded civic polls and his frequent clashes with local Congress leaders, political mills were running overtime with speculation about the Konkan strongman’s purported plans to defect either to the BJP or perhaps even return back to the Sena as its prodigal son.
