MUMBAI: The feud between former allies BJP and Shiv Sena spilt onto the streets on Tuesday and culminated in the arrest of Union MSME minister Narayan Rane, who began his career as a Shiv Sainik and is now with BJP. The action came a day after Rane’s statement during the Jan Ashirwad Yatra in the Konkan that if he was present at the spot, he would have given chief minister Uddhav Thackeray a “tight slap” for allegedly forgetting during a speech how many years it has been since India’s independence.
Rane, 69, was arrested in Ratnagiri during the day and brought before a magistrate’s court in Raigad’s Mahad taluka, where the statement had been originally made. He was granted bail minutes before midnight. Setting a cash bail of Rs 15,000, the magistrate ordered Rane to appear before the Mahad City police station on August 30 and September 13.
The order includes a condition imposed on him not to commit similar offences in future and the police to issue him a seven-day notice for seeking a voice sample for investigation. The court rejected the 7-day custody plea of the police.
Rane was detained in Ratnagiri’s Sangameshwar taluka in the afternoon after high voltage clashes between BJP and Sena workers in Mumbai, Thane, Konkan, Nashik and Pune. Earlier, a Ratnagiri court dismissed the Union minister’s anticipatory bail plea and his lawyers were unable to file a plea for urgent hearing in the Bombay high court.
The police had filed four FIRs against the Union minister for his controversial statement under IPC sections concerned with causing disharmony or enmity and breach of peace.
