Is Narendra Modi PM of Gujarat alone?: Narayan Rane

Claiming he had written to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan to convene an urgent cabinet meeting to condemn the Centre’s move, Rane said the Maharashtra Congress will hit the streets asking Mumbaikars to protest. “We won’t sit quiet till the Centre rescinds the move,” he declared.

Rane is also simultaneously leading a charge against the Modi government of “conspiring” to parcel out 1,800 acres of prime land in Mumbai worth Rs 75,000 crore to a businessman affiliated to the BJP. Rane said that in the name of development of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust land, the Centre was planning to shift container traffic from JNPT to Mundhra port in Gujarat. “It has plans to release the unlocked 1,800 acres JNPT land to a businessman who is close to the BJP,” he said. About Modi, he said: “Is he the prime minister of Gujarat alone?”

The Congress’s poll committee chief also strove to strike an emotive chord with Marathi-speaking voters by attacking the BJP for using Shivaji’s name in its election slogan.

The makeover

Only in July this year, Rane resigned from the cabinet and threatened to quit the party, unhappy that promises made to him when he joined the party were not being kept. At Kankavli in Konkan mid-July, the industries minister had warned the assembly election outcome would be a duplication of the Lok Sabha numbers for the Congress, railed against the “present leadership” and more or less pitched himself for the post of Maharashtra Congress chief.

Despite his own narrowing support base in the Konkan and his son’s Lok Sabha election debacle, Rane was mollified — the Congress did not want a rebellion on its hands after the Lok Sabha rout. Since then, Rane has presented himself as the aggressive face of the

Maharashtra Congress, ready to take on Modi, his own detractors in the Congress and the Rane-baiters in Konkan.

With the MNS factor on the ebb in Mumbai and other urban pockets in the state, the Congress, which suffered a wipeout in the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region, is now staring a rout from the region during the assembly polls, and Rane is taking up that vacant political space in the Congress leadership.

A division of Marathi-speaking votes between the Shiv Sena and the MNS in 2009 had allowed the Congress to wrest 17 out of 36 assembly seats in Mumbai. In the LS polls, Modi’s popularity overrode any such division, with the MNS playing all but fizzled out as well.

The moves to undermine Mumbai would affect employment prospects for Marathi youth, Rane is now saying. He has alleged that the Centre’s proposal for a bullet train connecting Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to Gujarat’s Ahmedabad was also a bid to drive away the ‘flourising diamond trade’ in Mumbai. A diamond bourse currently functions out of BKC.

The reason why

The aggressive posturing by Rane is well-timed. The odds have never been stacked against Rane so high.

Last month, the Shiv Sena scored a victory of sorts by getting former NCP MLA Deepak Kesarkar from Sindhudurg, a known Narayan Rane baiter, to join the party. Kesarkar is widely believed to have disobeyed his NCP party bosses to campaign against Nilesh Rane in the Lok Sabha polls.

Rane announced last week that he would contest the assembly election from Kudal while son Nitesh, who has himself raised some Congress hackles by running the Swabhimaan Sanghatana, would contest from Kankavli. For Rane, who complained bitterly in July that he had been promised the chief ministership when he joined the Congress , the assembly election is one of prestige and survival.

In Kudal, Rane is set to face Vaibhav Naik who will contest on a Shiv Sena ticket and is currently going house-to-house in Sindhudurg attempting to capitalise on a continuing anti-Rane wave in the region. Naik is hugely popular and while observers say Nitesh stands a 50-50 chance, Rane’s own election will be an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, one of Rane’s closest aides, Rajan Teli, who has fallen out with the leader in recent times, joined the NCP last week and has demanded that he be given the Congress-NCP ticket to contest against Kesarkar in Sawantwadi.

“If the alliance is formed, I’ll be the leader of the alliance in Sindhudurg and ticket distribution will be with me,” Rane said about Teli on Wednesday, hinting that he would ensure his former aide does not get a Congress-NCP ticket.

But Rane would likely feel the loss of Teli and another close aide of his, Kaka Kudalkar, who too joined the NCP last week.   Another senior NCP leader, former Maharashtra minister Bhaskar Jadhav, also appears to be at war with the Ranes in Konkan, with Nilesh declaring that he would ensure Jadhav’s defeat from Guhagar.