Months after the controversy after his 'tight slap' remark followed by the arrest, Union minister Narayan Rane on Tuesday said that he did not have any intention to vilify, humiliate or incite hatred against Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, India Today reported.
Union minister Narayan Rane had sparked off a row over his remarks about slapping Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for what he claimed as the latter's ignorance of the year of India's independence.
Rane's remarks drew sharp reactions from Shiv Sena, whose workers had put several posters in Mumbai and other places, calling him a 'kombdi chor' (chicken stealer/thief), a reference to the poultry shop he ran in Chembur five decades ago, during his initial stint with the Bal Thackeray-led party.
Rane flagged off his political life in Mumbai with the son-of-the-soil party led by Bal Thackeray in the late 1960s. He entered the Maharashtra Assembly in 1990 as a Sena MLA.
In February 1999 when he was sworn in as Maharashtra's 13th chief minister. That stint was short as the then Shiv Sena-BJP combine lost the state Assembly elections held later that year.
In 2005, Rane parted ways with the Shiv Sena following irreconcilable differences with the Thackerays.
After quitting the Sena, he joined the Congress and was made state revenue minister. He quit the Congress in 2017, saying he had joined it on assurance of being put in the state's top position in six months.
He founded the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha with his two sons Nilesh and Nitesh as his key generals but later merged it with the BJP.
Over the years, Rane's rivals have linked him to several incidents of violence, claiming his involvement in the murder of a Sena worker and some other crimes in Konkan's Sindhudurg district.
(With inputs from agencies)
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)