Belligerent Rane suspended from Congress

The anti-party rhetoric cost the Maharashtra Revenue Minister Narayan Rane dearer as Congress suspended him on disciplinary grounds Saturday, just a day after his flare-up against the party president Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders.

“It has been observed that Rane made deliberate statements to lower prestige of the party. Taking a serious note of his utterances and considering it a case of gross indiscipline he has been suspended from the party with immediate effect,” Congress media secretary Tom Vadakkan said.

Rane, who was being considered as the powerful chief ministerial candidate after Vilas Rao Deshmukh resigned on Wednesday in the wake of Mumbai terror attack, had lashed out the Congress leadership on Friday after the party high command selected Industry Minister Ashok Chavan for the state’s top post.

Rane though said that he was not quitting the Congress, he lambasted outgoing Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and the newly appointed Ashok Chavan at a hastily convened media briefing at his residence yesterday.

Rane said Deshmukh should take moral responsibility for the Mumbai massacre, as he was squarely responsible for the victims of Mumbai terror attack.

“Ashok Chavan cannot handle even his ministry, he can't be my competitor for CM's post,” belligerent Rane had said.

He had also said that he did not even trust Sonia Gandhi anymore, and dubbed the six-hour marathon meetings with state legislators on Thursday by Union observers Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony as “farce.”

The Congress promptly said that Rane had breached party discipline and action would be taken against him.

A former chief minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government in 1999, Rane, who had joined the Congress in 2005 after spending three decades in Shiv Sena, had retorted that he was not scared about the prospect of any action by the party.