As many as 43 leaders, including former Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane, 69, will take oath as ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet on July 7 following the mega Cabinet reshuffle.
Narayan Rane became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in 1999 after Manohar Joshi stepped down from the post. Although he became a parliamentarian on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, he was once a member of the rival Indian National Congress (INC) party.
He began his political career with the Shiv Sena in 1968 when he was in his early 20s. As a Shiv Sena member, Rane had held the post of the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly till July 2005, that is before the party ousted him for indulging in anti-party activities.
According to an Indian Express report, the Shiv Sena reacted to his inclusion in PM Modi’s Cabinet and said: “Rane is a ZP block leader. He was a clerk before Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray made him a chief minister. He stabbed the man who made him big… Where Rane goes, he creates a mess…The Modi Ministry will meet the same fate.”
Rane switched to the Congress in 2005 and stayed loyal to the party for 12 years, during which he had even contested the 2014 election from his Malvan seat in the Konkan region on a Congress.
Rane, a six-time MLA and one-time MLC, has held the post of the Revenue Minister of Maharashtra. He has also handled other important portfolios such as animal husbandry, industry, port, employment and self-employment in the Government of Maharashtra.
On October 1, 2017, Rane had floated his own party -- Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha -- with his sons Nitesh and Nilesh. In 2018, he declared support for the BJP and a year later his son Nitesh was fielded by the saffron camp from the Konkan region. Later that year, his other son Narayan Rane became a Rajya Sabha member on a BJP ticket. It is believed the BJP readily took Rane into its folds to counter Sena in Maharashtra.
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