Born on April 1952, Former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane who was inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet in 2021, started his political career while he was in his twenties. Before entering politics, Rane was a member of ‘Harya-Narya’ gang, a street gang operating in Mumbai’s northeastern suburb of Chembur in the 1960s.
Mr Rane's initiation into politics took place as a member of the Shiv Sena when he became a local Shakha Pramukh at Chembur, Mumbai. Inducted into Sena by Balasaheb Thackeray, who was also his mentor, Rane became a corporator in Bombay, then chairman of Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) which then had a budget of over Rs 1,500 crore.
His handling of finances and raising money for the nestling Sena brought him closer to supremo Balasaheb Thackeray.
Appointed chief minister by Balasaheb Thackeray, when the then CM Manohar Joshi was asked to step down from the post in 1998, Rane remained on the seat for eight months before the Sena-BJP lost in the subsequent elections.
With the emergence of Uddhav Thackeray, Rane was sidelined which led to him heavily criticising the former’s working style. Falllen out of favour, Rane was removed from the Shiv Sena in 2005 on account of anti-party activities.
Narayan Rane moves to Congress:
After being expelled from Shiv Sena, later joined the Congress and was immediately made revenue minister of the state. Post the 26/11 Mumbai attack, Vilasrao Deshmukh stepped down and Ashok Chavan was made chief minister.
Furious Rane claimed that he was promised the CM post by the Congress high command. Rane protested against the party high command and launched an attack on Sonia Gandhi, which led to his suspension. However, after he apologised, his suspension was revoked.
He then in 2014, Rane contested election from Konkan on Congress’s ticket, which he lost. Congress again gave him a ticket to contest the bypoll election for the legislative assembly seat of Bandra East constituency but Rane lost this election to the Shiv Sena candidate.
Narayan Rane's sons:
Narayan Rane has two sons from wife Neelam; Nilesh, a former Congress MP, and Nitesh, a Congress MLA. Both have also been embroiled in several controversies. In 2015, Swiss leaks listed Nilesh and Narayan Rane’s wife Neelam as account holders.
In 2016, Nilesh was accused of kidnapping and beating up a local Congress leader Sandeep Sawant for not attending a rally he had convened as part of the Maratha protests in the state.
Speaking of his younger son Nitesh, he was in 2010 charged with attempt to murder after Shamim Shaikh, who was the vice-president of the transport wing of Nitesh’s Swabhimaan Sanghatana, alleged that latter had fired at him in the Swabhimaan office at Khar.
In 2017, Nitesh was arrested for using force against a public servant and criminal intimidation, among other charges. Earlier that year, the Mumbai police registered a case against him based on the complaint of a restaurant owner in Mumbai’s Juhu for allegedly extorting money. The Goa Police had chargesheeted Nitesh in a 2013 case of allegedly vandalising a toll booth in North Goa.
Cases against Narayan Rane:
When Rane decided to join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), he was facing allegations of money laundering by BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, who had accused Rane of diverting money from tax havens to a luxury project One Avighna Park in Central Mumbai. At the same time he was also a part of a state government probe into irregularities in denotification of industrial land in Nashik by the industries department.
Earlier, in 2002, former Congress legislator Padmakar Valvi had filed a case against Rane, who was then with the Shiv Sena and BJP’s Gopinath Munde, among others, alleging forcible abduction ahead of a trust vote against the then Congress-NCP government. The police filed a chargesheet against Rane and the other accused who were later granted bail.
