Narayan Rane.
Credit: PTI Photo
Starting as a local shakha pramukh in Mumbai's Chembur suburb, Narayan Rane went on to become the chief minister and Leader of the Opposition.
Rane (72), currently the Union Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Minister in the Narendra Modi government is BJP’s candidate from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg in the coastal Konkan belt of Maharashtra.
His five-decade-long journey in politics has been eventful.
He joined the Shiv Sena after being inspired by party supremo Bal Thackeray. He became a minister when the Shiv Sena-BJP government came to power in Maharashtra under Manohar Joshi. He took over as CM when Joshi was removed.
In 2005, Rane was expelled from Shiv Sena because of differences with Uddhav Thackeray, then Shiv Sena executive president. Rane later joined the Congress to become a minister in the erstwhile Congress-NCP Democratic Front government.
However, his dream of becoming the Chief Minister or the Maharashtra Congress president was never realised and he left the grand old party in 2017.
Rane floated Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha (MSP) which he later merged with the BJP and became a Rajya Sabha member. Thereafter, he was appointed a minister and would lead BJP’s charge in the bastion of Shiv Sena (UBT).