New Delhi: Former Chief Minister Narayan Rane, who quit the Congress last week, is set to meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah in New Delhi on September 25 evening amid speculations that he will join the party.
Rane told HT on Sunday that he would meet Shah and invite him to the inauguration of a medical college in his home town Sindhudurg. However, BJP national general secretary in charge of Maharashtra, Saroj Pandey, indicated that the party might induct Rane into its fold.
“If Rane accepts the BJP’s ideology, he will be considered,”Pandey told Marathi news channel ABP Maza, on the sidelines of the party’s national executive meet. She said she would comment only after Rane met Shah.
A former chief minister during the Shiv Sena-BJP government, Rane defected to Congress in 2005 after criticizing Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s son and political heir Uddhav. He was a minister in successive Congress governments till 2014 when the party lost power to the BJP.
Rane lost the last Assembly elections in 2014 and a bypoll in Bandra in Mumbai. He was rehabilitated by the party to the Legislative Council, but had been targeting Congress leadership in Delhi and Mumbai over the past few months. He quit the party after state leadership dissolved the Sindhudurg unit dominated by his supporters.
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