Congress’s Pratapsingh Rane bows out of Poriem contest against daughter-in-law

PANAJI: Senior Congress leader and former Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane will not contest the Goa assembly election from Poriem against his daughter-in-law Divya Rane, choosing to instead retire from electoral politics.

A six-time chief minister, 82-year-old Pratapsingh Rane has told the Congress to field Ranjeetsingh Rane from the seat. Ranjeetsingh Rane is the son of Jaysingh Rao Rane, the first MLA to represent the erstwhile Sattari constituency back in 1963, and joined the Congress in 2019.

In 1989, the Sattari seat was bifurcated into two: Poriem, which Pratapsingh Rane continued to represent, and Valpoi, which has been represented by his son Vishwajit Rane since 2007.

Incidentally, the BJP-led Goa government decided late last year to confer lifelong cabinet status on the senior legislator, one of the last decisions taken by the Pramod Sawant cabinet before the code of conduct came into force.

The Congress’s official announcement came late on Thursday evening, naming Ranjeetsingh Rane from Poriem and Khemlo Sawant from Sanvordem. The last date for filing nominations is Friday.

To be sure, Pratapsingh Rane had been under pressure from his family to exit active politics, particularly from son Vishwajit Rane who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2017 and has been health minister in the state government since then.

This time, Vishwajit Rane convinced the BJP to give the ticket from Poerim to his wife, Divya Rane, as he sought to expand his influence over the entire Sattari taluka. The junior Rane apparently told the BJP that his father, a 10-term legislator who has represented Poriem for five decades, was open to stepping aside if Divya was given the BJP ticket.

Pratapsingh Rane did contest this claim in a video released by the Goa Congress when the BJP in charge for Goa, Devendra Fadnavis first claimed that Pratapsingh Rane had consented not to contest and election.

His father’s rebuttal to Fadnavis upset Vishwajit Rane, who derisively countered his father in public, asking him to ‘retire gracefully” and even threatening that the situation could 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 on the battlefield. It will be a very messy thing,” Vishwajit Rane said.

Vishwajit Rane also threatened that should his father decide to contest, he would contest against him, before backing down and saying that the matter would be resolved “within the family.”

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.

But earlier this week, Rane took everyone by surprise after he along with his wife Vijayadevi visited a temple in his constituency and began meeting people of the constituency suggesting he had begun campaigning. But the senior leader said his visits had nothing to do with whether he was contesting or not.

On Wednesday, Pratapsingh Rane indicated that a decision on his contesting the election was yet to be made. ‘We will see. There are still two days to file nominations,’ the former chief minister told HT, his response to contesting the election.