Mumbai: In 2005, Konkan strongman Narayan Rane gave up the Shiv Sena’s bow and arrow symbol to embrace the Congress’s palm, before eventually moving on to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) lotus. On Tuesday, his elder son, former MP Nilesh Rane, changed his display pictures on his social media profiles to the bow and arrow, bringing the political career of Maharashtra’s Rane clan full circle.

Nilesh will be joining the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena formally Wednesday evening at a rally on his father’s home turf, Kudal, in the Sindhudurg district. Nilesh has been with the BJP ever since his father formally joined the party in 2019. His move to the Shiv Sena now is merely a political arrangement.

In 2019, the undivided Shiv Sena won Kudal and Sawantwadi from the Sindhudurg district, while Rane’s younger son, Nitesh Rane, won from Kankavli as a BJP candidate.

After the Shiv Sena split in 2022 when Shinde walked out of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party with a majority of MLAs, Sawantwadi MLA Deepak Kesarkar, followed him. The Kudal MLA, Vaibhav Naik, however, stayed with Thackeray. So, while the Shinde-led Shiv Sena has a sitting MLA in Sawantwadi, it does not have a sitting MLA to be a candidate in Kudal.

After the split, the Shiv Sena’s traditional bow and arrow symbol also went to the Shinde faction, while the Election Commission allotted the Shiv Sena (UBT) a new symbol—the mashal (a flaming torch)—in 2023.

Nitesh, whose name featured in the BJP’s first list of candidates released on Sunday, will again contest the Kankavli seat.

Speaking to reporters in Sindhudurg, Nilesh said, “When we are in an alliance, we have to work as per the alliance’s protocol, formula. This is something that has been decided by our leaders. My relations with the BJP will remain the same. Our target is that we have to win the election. I have always followed protocol and discipline.”

“What I am happy about is that the symbol on which (Narayan) Rane saheb started his political journey, I will be able to work on that symbol now,” he added.

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Full circle for Rane clan

Narayan Rane joined the undivided Shiv Sena under party founder Bal Thackeray in the 1970s, becoming a shakha pramukh—the head of one of the party’s local administrative units.

He was elected as a Shiv Sena corporator in the 1980s. The party even recommended him for the position of chairman of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) undertaking. In the 1990s, Rane climbed the ranks from an MLA to the post of CM, emerging as one of Shiv Sena’s most powerful leaders.

Narayan Rane briefly served as CM—between February and October 1999.

In 2005, he walked out of the Shiv Sena due to differences with Uddhav Thackeray as, simultaneously, Bal Thackeray expelled him from the party. Since then, been one of Uddhav Thackeray’s staunchest critics.

Two years before he walked out, when the Shiv Sena passed a resolution appointing Uddhav Thackeray as the executive president of the party, Narayan Rane is said to have personally expressed his displeasure over the appointment to Bal Thackeray.

Shiv Sena leaders often targeted Narayan Rane after his exit from the party, slamming him with nicknames that Bal Thackeray himself had popularised for him, including “nagoba cha pillu” (a snake’s child) and “kombdi chor” (chicken stealer—a snide reference to the poultry shop that he used to run in his early days in politics).

Narayan Rane joined the Congress after quitting Shiv Sena. In 2009, Nilesh contested and won the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket. Narayan Rane eventually walked out of the party in 2017. He formed his own outfit under the name  Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha that year, which he eventually merged with the BJP in 2019.

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)

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