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Raj Thackeray wanted us to start party together: Narayan Rane

In his tell-all autobiography No Holds Barred: My Years In Politics (Harper Collins), Rane, who now heads his own party and is a Rajya Sabha MP, recalls how Raj visited him in 2005, a few days after he quit.

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Former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane has made a startling revelation, saying MNS chief Raj Thackeray wanted to follow him out of the Shiv Sena back in 2005. In his tell-all autobiography No Holds Barred: My Years In Politics (Harper Collins), Rane, who now heads his own party and is a Rajya Sabha MP, recalls how Raj visited him in 2005, a few days after he quit. "He said he was frustrated with Uddhavji (Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray) and the new leadership and couldn't survive in the party any more," Rane has written.

"Interestingly, he suggested that he and I must align our interests and start a new party... Although this sounded great in theory, I was more realistic and said to him, 'Raj, I have worked with a Thackeray before. I know how the Thackerays operate, and I don't think I ever want to work with a Thackeray again," claimed Rane," he claimed.

Rane and Raj were both part of the Shiv Sena, until Rane quit and joined Congress in 2005. Raj then formed his own outfit, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, in 2006. Rane added that a group of 38 MLAs led by Raj loyalist Bala Nandgaonkar also wanted to go with him. Eventually, however, only 13 did.

Rane, who claimed about being marginalised in the Sena by Uddhav and his loyalists, said he met party supremo Bal Thackeray and handed over letters of resignation. But, he said, when Uddhav learnt of his father's efforts to make amends, he threatened to leave Matoshree with his wife Rashmi, breaking the late Sena chief's convictions.

Rane claimed that Uddhav, with senior BJP leader, the late Gopinath Munde, conspired to topple the Congress-NCP government in May 2002. Munde, who served as Rane's deputy during the latter's brief stint as Sena chief minister, was a "mole" who leaked information to the Democratic Front (DF) regime about legislators defecting to the saffron camp, he said.

Rane then claimed CM Devendra Fadnavis approached him in 2017, offering him a position of his choice, either in Maharashtra or in Delhi. But his induction into the BJP and the state Cabinet was stalled by the Sena's threat of withdrawing support, something Rane has dismissed as "bluster".

Even after he formed his Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha, Rane said, Fadnavis approached him to ally with the NDA. He eventually became a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP quota in March.

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