Former Congress MP Nilesh Rane, in stormy waters for kidnapping and assaulting a party worker, finally surrendered to the Maharashtra police in Chiplun in Ratnagiri district on Friday.
Mr. Rane will be produced in a local court later in the day. He was taken for a medical examination after he surrendered.
The eldest son of Congress’ Konkan strongman Narayan Rane, the younger Mr. Rane was directed to give himself up after the Bombay High Court quashed his anticipatory bail plea.
In his plea, Mr. Rane had alleged that all charges against him were “politically motivated”.
Nilesh Rane has been accused of kidnapping and beating up Sandeep Sawant, who headed the Congress unit in Chiplun Taluk. The incident occurred last month when Mr. Sawant failed to turn up at a rally on the issue of Maratha reservation rally organised by Mr. Rane, claiming that his mother was unwell.
Incensed at this supposed “insubordination”, Mr. Rane and his bodyguards stormed Mr. Sawant’s house later that night and forcibly took him in their car. They reached Mumbai, driving till Andheri, where they locked Mr. Sawant inside the Sindhudurg Bhavan.
The gang later beat up the hapless Mr. Sawant, who filed a complaint with the Thane police.
An FIR was registered against Mr. Rane and four others, including his personal assistant Tushar Panchal and bodyguard Manish Singh, under sections 323 (assault), 341 (wrongful restraint) 363 (kidnapping) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case was later transferred to the Chiplun police station as the incident took place there.
Mr. Rane, who was sitting MP from the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency, was narrowly defeated by the Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut during the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
