Narayan Rane resigns from Congress but keeps everyone guessing

After days of political developments and a war of words, Konkan strongman Narayan Rane on Thursday quit the Congress but kept everyone guessing on his next move. Rane (65) also quit his membership from the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

"When I came to the Congress, I was assured that I would be made the chief minister. However, the party went back on its words," Rane told reporters at Kudul in his hometurf of Sindhudurg. "I do not go after posts, the posts come to me," he said.
As he made an exit, he launched a scathing attack against several Congress leaders including Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Ashok Chavan.

His older son, Dr Nilesh Rane, a former MP from Ratnagiri in Sindhudurg also quit the party.

However, his younger son Nitesh Rane, a Congress MLA from Kudal, remains with the Congress.

Rane, who chose the occasion of ghat-sthapana — the first day of Navratri — to announce his exit from the Congress, said that he would announce his next move before Dasara.

On Friday, Rane would embark on a state-wide tour from Nagpur, meeting his supporters. He has made it clear that he would create a dent in the rank and file of the Congress and Shiv Sena.

Rane, who was the chief minister briefly in 1999 during the erstwhile Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government, later became the leader of opposition when the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government came to power.

In 2005, he was expelled by Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray for revolting against Uddhav Thackeray and subsequently joined the Congress to become a minister and handled portfolios like revenue and industries.

In the past few months, there has been speculation that he would join the BJP. He reportedly also met BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

He said that he was promised the chief minister's post by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her political secretary Ahmed Patel, Pranab Mukherjee, Digvijaya Singh and Margaret Alva.

"On three occasions, the Congress backtracked and ditched me," he said, adding that when he joined the Congress in 2005, he was assured that he would be made the chief minister within six months. "I was insulted and repeatedly himiliated," he said.

Rane claimed that in 2008, when the Congress decided to drop Vilasrao Deshmukh as the chief minister, 48 legislators voted for him, 32 voted for Ashok Chavan and 4 for Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil to take over. "Yet Ashok Chavan was made the chief minister," he said.

Prithviraj Chavan was never in the reckoning to become the chief minister in the first place. But when he did become the chief minister in 2010, he told me that I could pick the portfolio I wanted. I asked him to let me continue as revenue minister. Yet, he took away the revenue portfolio from me and gave me industries," he said.