Rane in BJP? Party leaders won’t decide before Prez election

While speculations are rife about Congress leader and former chief minister Narayan Rane’s likely induction into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), party leaders seem to have put the decision on hold for want of a consensus among other BJP leaders from the state, say sources. The party’s leadership is also not inclined to take any decision on him till the presidential elections, scheduled to be held in July, are over.

The BJP doesn’t want to antagonise the Sena, which considers Rane as its bete noire, should the NDA presidential candidate need Sena’s votes.

It was rumoured that Rane will join the BJP during the party’s two-day conclave at Pimpri Chichwad, held on Wednesday and Thursday. Rane, too , had indicated that he would make an announcement ahead of the same. However,neither the BJP spoke about the move, nor did the Congress leader.

According to the leaders from the state BJP, a consensus within the party has become difficult. “Most of the core committee members of the state unit are against the induction of Rane. We will have to give assembly and Lok Sabha tickets to his sons, besides making arrangements to get Rane re-elected to either Rajya Sabha or the legislative council. This will have to be done for the sake of benefits only in Sindhudurg district, where we have a very weak presence. And even after that, a leader like him does not fit in our political culture,” said a top BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.

Significantly, senior leader and union minister Nitin Gadkari, while addressing the conclave, told his partymen that they will have to accept new people in the party if they want it to grow.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, too, is not very keen to have Rane in the party, say sources. Though Fadnavis, in his concluding speech during the conclave, admitted to having a weak organisational set up in Sindhudurg, he did not make any comment on Rane.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) city unit chief Ashish Shelar asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to keep tabs on the quantity of silt recovered from desilting drains. “Where is the silt dumped, at which site, what is the amount of silt dumped? All these information must be readily available,” Shelar said on Thursday. Since a Rs38-crore desilting scam was unearthed in 2015, former allies Shiv Sena and BJP have been fighting to take credit for unearthing it. According to a source, the BJP’S senior leaders are harping on how the party is freeing the civic body of “corruption” and “mafia raj”. The Sena pointed out that the BJP has been its partner in power and blamed the administration for improper planning of the desilting process.