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Maharashtra’s Minister for Industry Narayan Rane, who has been sulking ever since the Congress lost the Lok Sabha polls in the state and on the verge of a revolt, has put his pressure tactics on hold after the party’s high command asked him to wait for a while before considering any extreme step.
Rane, who had convened a meeting of Congress legislators supporting him on Friday afternoon, cancelled it after the party high command’s missive to him.
Rane had resigned from the council of ministers immediately after the defeat of his son, Nilesh Rane, from the Ratnagiri-Sundhudug Lok Sabha seat. He skipped two Cabinet meetings held after the general elections, and wrote to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, expressing his unhappiness with the party top brass. He has also warned that if Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was not replaced immediately, the Congress might be decimated in the state Assembly election in September-October.
Now, with the high command’s intervention, Rane might get an opportunity to plead his case. He is expected to take up a slew of issues, including the immediate removal of Chavan.
“Chavan needs to expeditiously take various decisions ahead of the Assembly election. Besides, he will have to keep senior ministers, leaders and the party organisation together to avoid the Congress’ drubbing in the coming poll. A section of legislators strongly feel that Rane, who had been the chief minister for a short tenure during the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance rule in 1999, can enthuse the rank and file and he alone can strongly take on the saffron alliance,” a Congress legislator, who is close to Rane, told Business Standard.
He said party legislators were hoping for some positive decisions from the high command.
Rane has also pressed the need for the Congress to break its alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and go solo in the Assembly poll.
Rane argues that this is necessary because the Congress & NCP are trailing behind in 234 of the 288 Assembly constituencies in the recently concluded general election. Further, there has been mistrust between the two parties as in some Lok Sabha seats, Congress and NCP members worked against each other, benefitting the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, which won a record 42 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
