MUMBAI: Like in 2014, where there was no anti-Rane wave and on the other hand, there was no support from the Bharatiya Janata Party workers, Vinayak Raut from Shiv Sena has won by a margin even more than in 2014 in Sindhudurg.
This basically means the clout of Narayan Rane, the former chief minister of Maharashtra has weaned and people of Konkan are no more scared of him. The fact is people of Konkan have rejected the Rane family. Rane’s elder son Nilesh contested against Raut.
After his fall out with Congress, Rane set up his own party, Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksh. The fact is after the elections, Nilesh did not even feature in any of the exit polls. He was completely excluded, which basically meant that they had definitely lost the seat. This is a second consecutive defeat of Nilesh in two Lok Sabha elections.
Rane will now have to carefully chalk out his future course of action. Raut won by a margin of 1.78 lakh votes. Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg are no more considered the bastion of Rane, which once saw him hold the people here to ransom. Sena rules Ratnagiri and Rane’s clout could not break it.
Prior to the elections, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had asked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to scrap the Nanar refinery project, since locals were staunchly opposed to it and had threatened Sena of boycotting the recently held Lok Sabha. By scrapping the project, Sena has managed to win over the voters from Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.
