Remarking that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) alliance with the Shiv Sena ahead of the Assembly polls was a mistake, former chief minister and the BJP leader Narayan Rane on Sunday targeted his nemesis, Chief Minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, yet again by saying that the new Chief Minister lacked “adequate knowledge” about issues of the State.
Speaking in Solapur, Mr. Rane asserted that the BJP would have swept the Assembly polls had it contested on its own strength.
“We [the BJP] put a lot of trust in the Sena and fought the Assembly elections with them … but this proved to be a mistake. Had we gone it alone, today the BJP would have formed the government in Maharashtra,” Mr. Rane said.
The Konkan strongman, once a Shiv Sainik but now a bitter foe of his former party, said that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government under Mr. Thackeray would not last for more than two months.
“Uddhav Thackeray has no proper knowledge nor has done adequate study of the pressing issues afflicting the State … he is just a nominal Chief Minister,” said Mr. Rane.
Mr. Rane had formally joined the BJP and merged his party, the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha, with it in October last year ahead of the elections. In September 2017, he had severed his decade-plus association with the Congress, which he had joined following his acrimonious exit from the Sena.
His exit from the Congress, equally laden with acrimony, was with the expectation that the BJP, which is weak in the Konkan belt, would welcome him with open arms. At the time of his exit, Mr. Rane had vowed to deplete the ranks of his former parties.
Since then, the Konkan strongman has repeatedly targeted the Sena. Ahead of the elections, Mr. Thackeray had warned his then ally, the BJP, that the Sena would exit the saffron coalition if the BJP inducted Mr. Rane.
As a result, the Kankavli Assembly segment in particular and the Konkan belt in general had turned out to be a major flashpoint between the erstwhile saffron allies where the BJP and the Sena, despite contesting together, had propped up their own candidates.
The BJP had fielded Mr. Rane’s son, sitting MLA Nitesh Rane, from Kankavli. An irked Sena had in turn propped up its own nominee, Satish Sawant.
Mr. Rane had fielded his aides, Rajan Teli and Ranjit Desai, against Sena nominees Deepak Kesarkar and Vaibhav Naik for the Sawantwadi and Kudal seats, respectively. However, the BJP could win only two seats in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg belt, including Kankavli.
