Goa: Pratapsingh Rane keeps everyone guessing as poll date looms
‘We will see. There are still two days to file nominations,’ Pratapsingh Rane told HT, when asked whether he has made up his mind on whether he is contesting elections or not.
PANAJI: Senior Congress leader and former Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane continues to keep his cards close to his chest as he weighs up whether to contest in the upcoming assembly elections.
The six-time chief minister, who has famously never lost an election, will be up against his daughter-in-law Divya Rane, who has been announced as the BJP candidate for Poriem, a constituency that the senior Rane has represented since 1972 back when Goa was still a Union Territory and the constituency was called Satari.
“We will see. There are still two days to file nominations,” Rane told HT when asked whether he has made up his mind on whether he is contesting elections or not.
Pratapsingh Rane, a 10-term legislator, is Goa’s longest serving MLA. He also holds a record for having served as chief minister of the state for a little less than 16 years across six terms between 1980 and 2007. He was the assembly speaker between 2007 and 2012. He has been continuously elected since 1972 to the then legislative assembly of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu.
The 82-year-old Rane has made a series of flip flops on whether he will be contesting the elections.
After he initially announced that he would be contesting the upcoming elections, following the ‘requests’ of his workers and supporters, the Congress promptly announced that Rane would be the party’s candidate from the Poriem constituency.
His decision was met with derision by his son Vishwajit Rane, a minister in the BJP government and legislator representing the neighbouring Valpoi constituency. Vishwajit, who is nurturing dreams of his wife getting elected from the seat represented by his father, quite unkindly, suggested that his father should “retire gracefully”, and even threatened that the situation can get quite “messy”.
“At 83, why does he have to continue in politics? One should gracefully retire after becoming a CM for more than six terms. A person who is my idol and someone I have so much respect for, that person should gracefully retire, not retire in the battlefield. It will be a very messy thing,” Vishwajit Rane said.
Following his son’s outburst, Rane seemed to back down. “I have completed 50 years in politics. I feel I should take it easy now. I feel that way, it is a sincere feeling that I should take it easy and young people should be put forward,” the senior Rane said at the Congress foundation day function.
Rane has also been quick to counter BJP leaders every time they have suggested that he was quitting the Congress or that he was retiring from politics or that he has given his ‘consent’ to the BJP to field his daughter-in-law from his seat.
Reacting to comments made by BJP Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis, who said that Rane was “approached” and asked to “give the seat to the BJP”, he said: “It is not right. My name is being used; it should not be done. Poriem is not my backyard. This is fake news,” Rane said.
Earlier this week, Rane took everyone by surprise after he, along with his wife Vijayadevi, visited a temple in his constituency and began meeting the people there suggesting he had begun campaigning.
“I meet people all the time during my visits to the constituency,” Rane said when asked whether his recent moves meant he had begun campaigning.
“We have left it to his decision whether he would want to contest himself or nominate someone to contest in his stead,” senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said when asked what the Congress party’s stand is in the ongoing impasse.
With two days left for nominations to close, a decision one way or the other will have to be made.
Get Current Updates on India News, Election 2024, Mukhtar Ansari Death News Live, Bihar Board 10th Result 2024 Live along with Latest News and Top Headlines from India and around the world.