Uddhav changed candidates in ’99, led to defeat: Narayan Rane

The former Sena leader has made the allegations in his memoir, ‘No Holds Barred: My Years In Politics’. While the Sena said Rane’s claims should not be taken seriously, the BJP said Rane’s comments are not in good taste.

Narayan Rane has squarely blamed the current Sena chief, Uddhav Thackeray, for the party losing the 1999 Maharashtra Assembly elections and for the failure of Rane’s bid to topple the Congress-NCP government in 2002, which could have led to the Sena-BJP coming back to power.

Narayan Rane

The former Sena leader has made the allegations in his memoir, ‘No Holds Barred: My Years In Politics’. While the Sena said Rane’s claims should not be taken seriously, the BJP said Rane’s comments are not in good taste.

“The Sena, typically, after finalising its list of candidates, sends a signed copy with the names to [party mouthpiece] Saamana for publication. As soon as our complete list with Saheb’s [Bal Thackeray] signature reached Saamana, Uddhavji learnt of it and unilaterally replaced 15 of those candidates with other names. We were all caught off-guard,” Rane wrote in a chapter titled ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’.

In the 1999 Assembly election, the Sena had won 69 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 56. “Interestingly and unfortunately, the candidates replaced by Uddhavji were so disgruntled that they contested the election on tickets from other parties or as independents; 11 of them won! Had the candidates we had originally chosen been retained, we would have had a tally of 69+11 seats. And with support from independents and BJP, we would’ve comfortably crossed the half-way mark and formed the government,” Rane wrote.

In 2001-02, Rane orchestrated an operation to topple the Congress-NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) government by attempting to get 22 NCP MLAs to defect to the Sena. Rane said they had made the NCP MLAs stay at a club in Goregaon before a no-confidence motion in the Assembly. “Around June 8, Uddhavji visited the club, coincidentally when I’d stepped out for an important meeting. Sainiks at the venue informed me he had felt insulted I had not made myself available to him and had stormed off,” he said in a chapter titled ‘The Fallout’.

Rane said in order to “avenge the insult”, Uddhav conspired with BJP leader Gopinath Munde, who got Janata Dal leader George Fernandes to persuade Bal Thackeray to withdraw his support to the operation.

Reacting to Rane’s comments, Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said, “He just wants to be in the news [by making such claims]. Nobody is interested in his autobiography; he is not some inspirational figure”.

Madhav Bhandari, chief spokesperson, Maharashtra BJP, said, “Quoting any deceased leader, who is not there to defend himself or set the record straight, is not in good taste. All three leaders, who were involved in the activities then — Bal Thackeray, Gopinath Munde, and Pramod Mahajan — are not there today to give the other side. So how can somebody make such claims.”