Aditi Phadnis: Not another also Ran(e)

PLAIN POLITICS

Rane's exit leaves the Congress and the NCP as the only contenders in Maharashtra

It is unlikely the people of Sindhudurg in Maharashtra will punish Narayan Rane in the usual way voters punish defectors. When Rane has to fight the byelection for a seat in the Vidhan Sabha as a Congress, not a Shiv Sena member, the indications are that he will win. The same cannot be said of the nine other MLAs who defected from the Shiv Sena to the Congress to be with him.

Rane began life with a can-do approach. A clerk in the Income Tax Department in the early 1970s, he joined the Shiv Sena and was made a shakha pramukh in 1984. The following year, he was given the party ticket for the Bombay Municipal Corporation.

Around this time, he caught Raj Thackeray's eye. Thackeray, who is much more an organisation man than his cousin Udhhav, saw in Rane a mix of qualities that a good party man must have: the bent for leadership and administration, the capacity to raise physical muscle if needed, and fund-raising capabilities.

Raj didn't know it then, but he'd hit gold. Rane was properly humble towards the leadership, but while in Mumbai, he nurtured his home regions, Sindhudurg in Konkan. Every household in Sindhudurg has at least one ablebodied male working in Mumbai.

The area is known for its money-order economy and for people from this region, there is an organic link between gaon and Mumbai. So Rane could afford to claim that in addition to his Konkan empire he also had a powerful following in Mumbai. He became a corporator, then an MLA, then a minister, then the leader of the opposition and then, in 1999, chief minister.

These are the bare facts of his career. How, you could ask, could a matriculate clerk in the income tax department become revenue minister and even chief minister of Maharashtra? At every stage in his career, Rane reinvented himself. He responded to the demand of the office he held and educated himself with rare discipline, tolerating no ideological fluff. In 1999, when he became CM, he rejected respectfully but publicly, a Thackeray proposal of giving free power to farmers.

But it is one thing to achieve great heights and quite another to stay there. Rane's ambitions were stunted by the alliance with the BJP. Outwardly a cordial alliance, tensions were ever present.

The BJP knew that if the Shiv Sena was allowed to grow untrammeled, its own rise would be curtailed. And the Shiv Sena knew that the BJP, while being able to act spoiler, could, given half a chance, hijack its membership and constituency. It was this cat-and-mouse game that was behind the advancing of the Assembly elections in 2000.

Rane's supporters believe that the advancing of the election was the beginning of a systematic plot by the BJP to begin eroding the roots of the Shiv Sena. It was an open secret that the BJP and Shiv Sena had defeated each others' MLAs. The idea was that the combine should win but the chief ministership should be out of the grasp of the other. Anyway, when the results yielded a hung assembly, Rane begged for a chance. He believed he could break the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and form a government.

But the BJP entered into a quiet pact with Sharad Pawar, who had every reason to stymie Rane, both being Marathas. So no decision could be taken and the Democratic Front came to power. Rane lost the top job but was made leader of the opposition.

In 2005, when elections came around again, it was clear that equations in his own party had changed. Udhhav Thackeray emerged as heir apparent. By now it was clear to everyone that if the Shiv Sena came within sniffing distance of chief ministership, the party's candidate would either be Uddhav Thackeray or veteran party leader Subhash Desai. For Rane it was the end of the road.

"Protection" is a word every Mumbaikar knows well. You have to be "protected" "" either by the Shiv Sena or by the enemies of the Shiv Sena "" if you belong to a certain class, a certain region, and live and work in Mumbai.

Although he was acquitted twice by lower courts, the murder of a supporter of Congress leader from Konkan, Maj Sudhir Sawant, dogged Rane. So did rumours of linkages with the underworld.

In the eyes of the average Shiv Sainik, these were not disqualifications. But now, if Rane too had left the Shiv Sena, what was left of the Shiv Sena? And if the Shiv Sena dwindles away, what will take its place?

With Rane's exit, it is almost certain that the 2010 elections in Maharashtra will be between the Congress and the NCP. The BJP is not strong enough to occupy the opposition space.

And with Rane in the Congress, the clash between Marathas for leadership will be manifest. This will not be a benign conflict. It will be determined, ruthless and violent. Like Narayan Rane.