#dnaEdit: Takeaway from Bandra bypoll

The trouncing of Congress leader Narayan Rane in the Bandra (East) bypoll is unlikely to put an end to his political journey. It’s a pause, at best, in a long and chequered career. The former Chief Minister had tasted defeat twice last year — when he lost in his turf, the Sindhudurg assembly seat, and son Neelesh Rane was voted out of Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency in the Lok Sabha election. True, the Shiv Sena candidate Trupti Sawant, the widow of former MLA Bala Sawant whose death necessitated the contest, won by a handsome margin, but actually it’s a triumph of the politics of polarisation that the Sena-BJP peddles. The growing popularity of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) — still a fringe player — is a fallout of the minorities’ fear and distrust towards the saffron combine. The AIMIM candidate Rehbar Khan polling more than 15,000 votes, thus scuttling Rane’s prospects in a triangular fight, bears testimony to that. It is a bitter truth that the bypoll was fought and won on communal lines. In the next couple of years, the AIMIM will increasingly play up minority sentiments to impact the Brihanmumbai Municipal elections in 2017.

The Congress displayed lack of foresight by fielding the strongman in an uncertain seat. Even then Rane had put up a robust fight, securing 33,703 votes, nearly thrice what the Congress candidate Sanjeev Bagadi had garnered — 12,229 — in the 2014 assembly elections in the same constituency. 

Today, the beleaguered, rudderless party needs a leader like Rane — and not the other way round. Not only does Rane enjoy considerable appeal at the grass roots, he would have been invaluable for his party in the state assembly where the opposition’s voice has weakened. His uneasy relationship with the Congress leadership — he was suspended from the party when he protested against the decision to replace Vilasrao Deshmukh with Ashok Chavan as Chief Minister — and the NCP has given rise to speculations of whether he would contemplate switching camps. If that happens, it would be a huge blow for the so-called secular outfits whose diminishing influence in state politics is a matter of considerable concern.

Rane’s defeat doesn’t signal an end to the strongarm tactics that he has often been accused of adopting. His brand of aggressive politics is widely prevalent across the state and in the country. It’s also true that his career has been marked by many controversies, some of which were instrumental in hastening his fall. The real estate scams during his stint as the revenue minister had tarnished his image. Recently, he attracted criticism for defending Neelesh’s  adverse comments in the social media about the Gujarati community.

But, Rane still has the ability to shore up the Congress’s prospects. It’s time for him to introspect over what had gone wrong in the last couple of years that precipitated his decline. A mass leader, rising from humble origins, he has weathered many a storm to reach this level in his political life. What he needs is a course correction for himself as well as his party. This defeat should initiate that process and renew and strengthen his involvement with his support base. Very few Congress leaders in the state can match up to the popularity he once enjoyed, though his long involvement with the Shiv Sena and its rabble-rousing politics did add heft to his political stature in the early days.

It now depends on Rane if he can use this drubbing to concentrate his energies to rebuild his image and that of his party’s. Though Uddhav Thackeray is savouring his party’s success, in a broader context this is not quite a victory for the Sena; rather a defeat of the once mighty Rane.