Narayan Rane's hopes for a return to the Assembly has been dashed with the Shiv Sena winning the Bandra (East) by-poll. Sena's Trupti Sawant defeated him by over 19,000 votes here.
Narayan Rane's hopes for a return to the Assembly has been dashed with the Shiv Sena winning the Bandra (East) by-poll. Sena's Trupti Sawant defeated him by over 19,000 votes here.
So, is it curtains for Rane? From what Rane himself says, though in a different context, it's clear that he is in no mood to give up.
When BJP leader and water resources minister Girish Mahajan said Rane should retire now, the former chief minister's reactions was curt: "I will take a call when required and others need not worry about my retirement."
One of these calls could be to ask his son Nitesh Rane to resign from the Kankavli seat as an MLA for his comeback to the House.
There are also a few who speculate that he could either join the NCP or retire. Then, there are the staunch Rane supporters who believe that two successive defeats will not end his career as he is not averse to taking up challenges.
State Congress president Ashok Chavan's statement that the party still needs Rane may fall as music to the ears of his supporters, but those who know the inside-outside of the party unit know that many in the Congress did not want Rane to win.
Rane's aggressive nature and his habit of challenging the leadership could have costed him his career in the Congress at least twice in the past. A senior leader recalled that it was Rane's supporters who pelted stones on Vilasrao Deshmukh's house in Mumbai. Rane had also criticised Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi after the Lok Sabha debacle in 2014.
Even though there is no official word from Rane or his family members including his MLA-son about his future, Chavan's remark that he would be happy to see Rane saheb back in state assembly offers some hope for Rane and his supporters.
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