Vishwajit Rane, the 'young man in a great hurry' to be Goa's chief minister

Rane, Goa's health minister, was elected to the Assembly in 2017 on a Congress ticket. But soon after the results, he jumped ship and joined the BJP

Goa’s Health Minister Vishwajit Rane purportedly called a reporter and told him he had a conversation with former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who claimed to have important documents on the Rafale deal in his custody. In the phone conversation, Rane is urging the reporter to write a story.

The reporter made the transcript of the purported conversation public instead. But if he had written the story, what might have happened? Almost without doubt, Parrikar would have been badly discredited, seen in competition with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and possibly removed from office. And guess who would have laid a claim to the vacancy?

Rane, 47, has often been called a "young man in a great hurry". When the Goa Assembly elections were held in 2017 and the result was 17 MLAs for the Congress, even before the party could lay claim to forming the government, Rane resigned — after getting two Congress MLAs to join the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), helping it retain power in the state. 

The BJP later won the by-polls, including the Valpoi seat (from where Rane was re-elected, this from the saffron party), tightening its grip on power. This emasculated its allies Goa Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, some members of which were flirting with the Congress with a toppling game in mind, with very little room left to manoeuvre. Rane made it clear that it was his genius that had secured victory for Parrikar. 

“He (Rane) must have told the BJP high command that he will get two Congress MLAs, so make him chief minister,” Congress Secretary A Chellakumar said at the time.

On the other hand, Rane told IANS: “I will demolish the Congress party. They will be reduced to 10 by Christmas-New Year. Save your flock. That is my message to Rahul Gandhi. Leaders in the Congress are tired of Rahul Gandhi.” 

Now clearly, he is getting impatient. The vacancy everyone is waiting for has not materialised. BJP President Amit Shah has said as much. But the effort to propel events just doesn’t stop.

Rane is the famous son of a famous father — Pratapsingh Rane has been chief minister of Goa from the Congress half a dozen times. While he was in the Congress, Vishwajit Rane’s outspokenness, his penchant for the dramatic and constant threats to the party’s leadership about contesting Assembly elections as an Independent rather than on a Congress ticket annoyed his peers as well as seniors within the party. 

But the BJP, which he joined, has not been terribly kind to him either. True, it made him health minister. But he was, after all, only a recent entrant to the BJP. 

How could the party countenance give him the top job? “He has always got his way around the Congress leadership because of his father’s reach in the party. Can he function in a more disciplined, structured organisation like ours?” a BJP leader told local newspapers. 

There are many claimants for chief ministership when a vacancy does arise. But Rane, true to form, has shot the bolt too soon. There is the other factor. Rane is a Maratha. But in Goa, unlike Maharashtra, there is a different caste configuration. 

There are enough elements in the BJP who are waiting to do to Rane what he has done to Parrikar. But they are biding their time. This makes it highly unlikely that Rane will be the next chief minister of Goa.