With electoral losses, there’s fall in Rane’s bargaining ability too

New Delhi, Sept 22: Amid much enthusiasm evoked in Maharashtra politics over Mr Narayan Rane quitting Congress, leaders from BJP, Shiv Sena and even Congress suggest that the hype could be ‘unnecessary’ as one-time powerful leader and a former Chief Minister has lately lost ground on his home turf. “Narayan Rane quitting Congress weakens the grand old party, but tell me two reasons why BJP should take Narayan Rane and I will cite two on why he should not be taken into our fold,” a BJP MP from the western state of Maharashtra said here. The leader cites Mr Rane losing out to Shiv Sena’s Vaibhab Naik in fiefdom Kudal in Sindhudurg district in Konkan region in the the Assembly polls of 2014. Moreover, he said “an ambitious Rane again lost the Bandra (East) Assembly seat” in the bypoll in 2015 proving for once that things have still not changed for him. Earlier, in May 2014, his elder son Nitesh Rane also had lost the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency, while his younger son Nilesh is a Congress MLA now. As far as Mr Rane ‘losing ground’ is concerned, the state Congress leaders agree readily with the BJP version and blame it on father-son alleged ‘arrogant’ style of functioning and harbouring “sky-touching ambitions”. Even Sena leaders vouch for this with senior MP Anil Desai stating that: “Mr Narayan Rane now will have no place in Sena. He deserted our party in 2005 and party supremo Bal Thackeray was displeased.” In fact, there is also talk in the political circle that Mr Rane’s decision to quit Congress now could be out of frustration as he does not seem to be nearing the chair of Chief Ministership. “In 2005, he decided to join Congress after he clashed with Uddhav Thackeray with the hope that Congress high command would reward him for the bold fight against Bal Thackeray,” a Congress leader said. However, everyone seemed to be putting the fingers crossed as Mr Rane is known for “dealing” with the top. Political grapevine in Mumbai in 2005 – on the eve of his fight with Uddhav Thackeray – was that he directly worked out the deal with senior Maharashtra Congress leader Vilasrao Deshmukh and later with none other than Ahmed Patel, trusted aide of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. In this context, one BJP leader said, “It is still not clear whether he has established some contacts with Amit Shah directly or indirectly....Amitbhai has a knack of pulling in leaders from other parties and destroying them. Rane could be one as were likes of Himanta Biswa Sarma is Assam and some former BSP leaders in Uttar Pradesh”. UNI