Sindhudurg NCP unit not ready to bury hatchet with Rane

Defying NCP president Sharad Pawar's diktat, the local unit of the party today said it would not campaign for Congress candidate Nilesh Rane, the son of senior Congress minister in Maharashtra Narayan Rane, in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency.
The local NCP leaders even said they would boycott a rally which is to be addressed by Pawar tomorrow.
Congress and NCP are in alliance in the state. However, the stiff opposition from the local unit of Pawar-led party to Rane has its roots in a 2002 murder of district NCP chief Bala Bhise's brother Satyavijay Bhise, for which local NCP had blamed Rane's supporters. Rane, at the time, was in Shiv Sena.

Pawar had recently met local leaders and made it clear that they must help the ally Congress' candidate.
However, local NCP MLA Deepak Kesarkar today said he and others would not share the stage with Rane. He had met Pawar two days back and put forth local NCP workers' stand, he said.
"We will boycott tomorrow's rally," Kesarkar said, adding that a proposal was also passed in the local NCP's core committee meeting today that Pawar should steer clear of the rally, which will also be addressed by the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.

Kesarkar said he was ready to resign as MLA.

"I don't care if I am not an MLA. We cannot go against our principles. We will not tolerate any kind of tyranny (by Rane).
"I am ready to resign if asked....If Congress does not get NCP's support it will cost it as many as 70,000 votes," he claimed.
The main contest in this coastal constituency would be between Nilesh Rane and Shiv Sena's Vinayak Raut, currently a Member of the Legislative Council.