Mumbai: Former chief minister Narayan Rane — who quit the Congress and formed the Maharashtra Swabhimaan Party — on Friday said that his party would contest the polls in Sindhudurg district. Sindhudurg had three assembly seats and one Lok Sabha constituency. Sources said that Rane himself would contest the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket against Shiv Sena MP Vinayak Raut as there was no possibility of a Sena-BJP alliance.
Rane told reporters in Kudal, Sindhudurg, that he would soon be inducted into the Devendra Fadnavis government, adding that he “didn’t have the habit of waiting for long”. However, Mr Fadnavis had no plans to reshuffle his Cabinet soon, sources clarified.
Of Sindhudurg’s three assembly seats, Kankavli is held by Rane’s son Nitesh while Kudal and Sawantwadi are with the Sena. While Nitesh won on a Congress ticket in the 2014 Assembly polls, Rane lost from Kudal. Rane’s other son, Nilesh, while contesting on a Congress ticket, lost to the Sena in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency.
