Former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Pratapsingh Rane on Wednesday issued a strong rebuttal to a claim made by former Maharashtra Chief Minister and BJP's Goa in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, who at a party rally on Tuesday had claimed that Rane was heading towards the BJP ahead of the 2022 state assembly polls.
Rane, who has served as Chief Minister of the state for nearly 15 years over five terms from the early 1980s, accused the BJP of spreading canards against him.
"The news that is being spread that I am quitting my party is a figment of imagination. These people just want to spread canards. I am not leaving my party," Rane said in his video message.
"I belong to the Congress party for over 45 years. and I do not think that I would ever at this juncture of leaving the Congress party. I belong to the Indian National Congress and that's it," Rane further said.
Rane's "courtesy meeting" with Fadnavis in September at the former's private residence had also triggered political speculation in the state.
State Congress president Girish Chodankar also condemned Fadnavis's statement.
"Fadnavis is just furthering the BJP tradition of telling lies. He made a statement about Pratapsingh Rane. It was full of lies. We did not expect that a CM of a big state would lie like this. We know that BJP leaders in Goa lie, but did not know that about Fadnavis. We condemn his statement on Rane," Chodankar said on Wednesday.
Fadnavis had alluded to Rane joining the BJP on Tuesday at a function here to induct a Congress MLA and another former CM Ravi Naik into the party. Naik had resigned from his legislatorship earlier on the same day.
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(Published 08 December 2021, 16:57 IST)
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