Once Narayan Rane was a blue-eyed boy of Shiv Sena, later on, rebelled against Balasaheb Thackeray and quit the party. Seventeen years since he left Sena, Narayan Rane is again locked in a bitter fight with the former. Rane, now a Union Minister, and one of his sons too joined BJP following his father’s footsteps.
Starting with a loyal Shiv Sainik from old times, Balasaheb decided to give chance to Manohar Joshi, a Brahmin by caste. Well! Joshi was CM and Gopinath Munde from BJP was his deputy, the government did perform good, most important and most required at the time, the government was successful in wiping out the underworld gangs headed by Dawood Ibrahim and Pathan and other small regional gangs of Mumbai.
Everything was going well until Balasaheb asked Joshi to resign from the CM post and replace Narayan Rane. As a result of this, Rane became hugely arrogant. Narayan Rane made a mistake when he quit the Shiv Sena in 2005. The political scenario in the state would have been different had Rane not quit, Rane mistakenly believed that he would be made CM on joining the Congress. He had faced a lot of humiliation. After a few years, he restored to open attacks on Congress leaders until expelled.
The primary years of the Shiv Sena were entirely different; those days’ people had no guts to speak against Balasaheb and his party. Rane was one of the trusted lieutenants of Balasaheb Thackeray for years and Balasaheb gave him a lot of political honours. After quitting the party, Rane was in two minds over joining a new party and whether he should choose Congress or NCP. He had met Pawar before taking the decision but Pawar did not offer him anything.
Amongst all the people who left Shiv Sena, Narayan Rane was the only one who started condemning Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray to the worst extent. Also, he created troubles for Shivsainiks, murdered a few in the arrogance of power. Rane’s one son is an ex-MP and another one is currently a BJP MLA they too followed the footsteps of his father. Also, the ex-MP son criticized Balasaheb posthumously with the worst accusations. MLA son is busy cruising Aaditya Thackeray, grandson of Balasaheb and son of Uddhav Thackeray. Rane couldn’t be loyal to a family that changed his life. So, making Narayan Rane a CM of Maharashtra was one of the worst decisions of Balasaheb.
Shiv Sena has never happily played second lead in Maharashtra politics since 2014 and it was quite evident that the alliance with BJP was always conditional. During Balasaheb’s time, they were scary powerful, while the BJP played the second fiddle. 2019 Lok Sabha elections BJP was in a minority government and when BJP failed to take Shiv Sena into confidence, BJP tied the knot with Rashtravadi leaders and came to power for a few hours. Maybe that was a well-thought plan of Pawar to control the situation. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena played its card well and took to the Uddhav becoming CM was shocking to many political parties. When Uddhav Thackeray became chief minister of Maharashtra, there were four corner attacks on him. Still, Uddhav somehow managed to cope up with all challenges and Maha Vikas Aghadi is still in power.
If you go back to history, Narayan Rane’s political ambitions have no end and so always wanted to remain in high profile. When Balasaheb started portraying Uddhav Thackeray as the next president of the party it was Narayan Rane who created unrest within the party. Although Balasaheb was never in favour of the dynasty in Indian politics, he did not mind nominating Uddhav and thereafter Aaditya as the future leaders. Many aggrieved Shiv Sena leaders then left the party.
When Rane joined Congress; INC was already over flooded with loyalist leaders. The friction was so harsh that in 2014 when he lost the assembly elections, many INC leaders were happy not to have him in the assembly. He was given one more chance in Mumbai, however, there also he lost the elections. Finally, he became a member of Samvidhan Parishad. Despite knowing his ambitions, INC members preferred to distance themselves from him. Frustrated, Rane had no other option but to form his own political party or to enter some other party. His political support in the Konkan area is dwindling day by day and in addition to this, the deeds of his two beloved sons have always embarrassed him. So probably out of no choice, he joined the BJP.
Balasaheb Thackeray always was a sky-high figure in Maharashtra politics by virtue of his attitude of taking a stand and being firm on that. He was able to maintain his image of a strong & self-made leader. Shiv Sena-BJP alliance came into existence in 1990. Given the stature of Balasaheb, then BJP leaders always behaved with him with the utmost honour. National leaders of BJP used to pay him courtesy visits regularly. Uddhav was not active in politics until Shiv Sena came to power in 1994 i.e., after about 30 years of presence in politics. As Balasaheb grew older, Uddhav started to pose his command over the party affairs. Gradually Uddhav was appointed as party chief. But until the demise of Balasaheb, BJP leaders used to give an upper hand to Shiv Sena in its alliance out of the stature of Balasaheb.
