Narayan Rane raises suspicion over BJP leader Gopinath Munde's death in his autobiography

In what may stir a hornet's nest, former chief minister Narayan Rane has claimed that senior BJP leader and former union minister Gopinath Munde's death in a road accident in New Delhi in 2014 was "sudden and mysterious".

In his autobiography, 'No Holds Barred: My Years in Politics', Rane, a former Shiv Sainik, who later shifted to the Congress and is a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP quota, claimed Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and Munde had thwarted his bid to topple the Congress-NCP regime in 2002. This, he claimed, had been done by leaking information about defecting legislators to the rival Congress-NCP leadership.

Munde, who was Rane's deputy in the erstwhile Shiv Sena-BJP regime in Maharashtra, was the BJP's mass leader in the state and the leader of the powerful OBC Vanjari community. The second-term MP from Beed had been sworn in as the rural development minister in the Narendra Modi government. However, just days later, he died in a road accident in Delhi on June 3, 2014.

Rane, who replaced Manohar Joshi as the second Shiv Sena chief minister of Maharashtra in 1999, noted that Munde had an intense desire to become the chief minister.

"The fact is we are just puppets in the hands of fate; the real legislators are in God's assembly. In 2014, when Munde finally got a chance to become part of the country's top leadership and could potentially become Chief Minister of Maharashtra in the near future, an unfortunate, sudden and mysterious road accident snatched his life away. Sab takdeer ki baat hai. It's all destiny's game," writes Rane.

In his book, Rane has also detailed how Munde's ambitions led to the BJP not supporting his (Rane) candidature as the chief minister after the 1999 assembly elections, and a series of events led to the Congress and NCP forming the government under Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Interestingly, Rane has also charged that Uddhav and Gopinath Munde had conspired to ensure that his bid to topple the Congress-NCP regime under Vilasrao Deshmukh in May 2002 fell through. He charged Munde with being a "mole" who leaked information to the Democratic Front (DF) regime, about legislators defecting to the saffron camp.

Alleging that Uddhav had "much to do with the failure of the operation," Rane said he wanted to "avenge the insult" when he visited defecting legislators at a suburban club but did not find Rane there to receive him and had conspired with Munde, who he was "convinced," was the "mole."

Mole In Party

• Rane has charged Uddhav and Munde of conspiracies to ensure that his bid to topple the Congress-NCP regime under Vilasrao Deshmukh in May 2002 fell through 
• He charged Munde with being a “mole” who leaked information to the Democratic Front (DF) regime, about legislators defecting to the saffron camp