Union Minister Narayan Rane, who had instigated controversy after delivering insulting comments against Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, made an alarming claim on Friday, 26 November, saying that Maharashtra will be governed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration by March.
In a video posted by news agency ANI, Rane spoke to reporters and asserted, "Change will be seen in Maharashtra very soon. The change will be seen by March."
However, when reporters pressed for a clarification the minister responded in an evasive manner saying:
"To form a government, to break a government, some things have to be kept secret."Narayan Rane
In August, Rane became the first central minister to be arrested in over two decades for his comment on 'slapping' the Maharashtra CM.
Rane was attending his Jan Ashirwad Yatra in Raigad district when he publicly shamed CM Thackeray, saying that he would give 'a tight slap' to the CM for being ignorant of the country's year of independence.
Rane had also targeted the Thackeray family at the beginning of the Jan Ashirwad yatra, stressing that he has spent 39 years in Shiv Sena and 'knows the party's secrets'.
Background
In 2019, Shiv Sena and its 56 MLAs were on the helm of an alliance with erstwhile rivals NCP and Congress when the BJP pulled off a coup and inducted Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister of Maharashtra early in the morning.
However, with the apex court ordering a floor test with conditions, Fadnavis was compelled to resign and Thackeray was sworn in as CM soon after.
(With inputs from news agency ANI.)
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