Narayan Rane, the Union Minister for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, won from Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency in the Lok Sabha election by a margin of 47,858 votes according to the Election Commission of India.
His son Nilesh Narayan Rane had previously lost in the same constituency.
Early results showed his closest rival for the seat was Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate and incumbent MP Vinayak Raut, who won the seat with a margin of 19.79% in 2019.
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Raut had secured a vote share of 50.83%, while his opponent Nilesh Narayan Rane who he defeated had managed to get 31.04%.
The minister joined the BJP in 2018 and was elected to the Rajya Sabha. During the Union cabinet reshuffle in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi elevated him to Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Rane, aged 72, was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly as a Shiv Sena MLA in 1990. His close association with Bal Thackeray, the party’s founder, made him even more important, and he became Chief Minister of Maharashtra in 1999.
{{/usCountry}}Rane, aged 72, was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly as a Shiv Sena MLA in 1990. His close association with Bal Thackeray, the party’s founder, made him even more important, and he became Chief Minister of Maharashtra in 1999.
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In 2005, Rane parted ways with the Shiv Sena following irreconcilable differences with its founding family, the Thackerays. He then joined the Congress, Shiva Sena’s ideological rival and became the state Revenue Minister under Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
In 2017, Rane left the Congress and established his own party, the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha, along with his two sons, Nilesh Rane and Nitesh Rane.
The Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency holds significance in dominating the Konkan region. It includes six state Assembly seats and was created in 2008 through the delimitation exercise by merging old Ratnagiri and Rajapur Lok Sabha seats.
This is Rane’s first Lok Sabha election and he had expressed confidence in winning the seat by over 2.5 lakh votes. The constituency went to polls in the third phase on Mahy 7 and registered a voter turnout of 53.75%.
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The Lok Sabha polls for 543 seats were held in seven phases starting from April 19, with the last phase on June 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking a rare third term at the Centre with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.