After the opposition BJP scored a victory over the ruling Uddhav Thackeray-led tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the Sindhudurg District Cooperative Bank election on Friday, Union Minister Narayan Rane, who was responsible for engineering the win, said his next aim was to install a BJP government in Maharashtra.
Eleven directors of the bank panel backed by Mr. Rane emerged victorious as opposed to the eight from the MVA front. However, the win was significant in the sense that it proved Mr. Rane, the strongman of the Konkan region (of which Sindhudurg is a part of), could still call the shots in the area and inflict defeats on his biggest political adversary — the Shiv Sena, which dominates the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in the Konkan region.
The win for Mr. Rane comes at a crucial moment after a Sindhudurg court on Thursday quashed the anticipatory bail plea of his son and Kankavli MLA Nitesh Rane in an attempt to murder case. The younger Rane has been absconding for more than five days now.
Taking aim at the ruling Sena and Mr. Thackeray, the Union Minister said it was to be hoped after this win that “the people concerned [the Sena] will know better as the public would teach them a lesson if a ‘conspiracy’ was again hatched against the Rane family.”
“Now, our next target is [to supplant] the current MVA government. The BJP will win all Lok Sabha seats in the Konkan in the coming general election. The people here will throw out unwanted legislators and MPs who do not work among people,” said Mr. Rane, who has been embroiled in a running feud with Chief Minister Thackeray and the Sena in the last few months.
BJP jubilant
Buoyed by the win, a jubilant Maharashtra BJP leadership hit out at Mr. Thackeray and the ruling Sena, remarking that the district bank election results were a perfect riposte to the Sena’s ‘politics of malice’ against the Rane family.
The Sindhudurg police on Wednesday issued a notice to Mr. Narayan Rane, who is the Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, to present his son Nitesh before the police in connection with the attempt to murder case.
The senior Mr. Rane was also asked to present himself at the Kankavli police station (in Sindhudurg district) to record his statement in connection with the case, which the Union Minister did not do so. Following this, the police apparently pasted the notice at Mr. Rane’s residence.
The Union Minister accused the ruling Sena of behaving with malice towards his son, remarking on Thursday at a press conference that “he was not a fool to reveal Nitesh’s whereabouts” and that “no big crime” had taken place and nor was his son “a terrorist”.
