Narayan Rane blames Uddhav Thackeray for Shiv Sena’s defeat in 1999 Maharashtra Assembly elections

Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Narayan Rane has blamed Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray for party’s loss in 1999 Maharashtra Assembly elections. Rane also blamed the Thackeray for the failure of his bid to topple the Congress-NCP government in 2002.
According to the Hindustan Times, Narayan Rane has made the allegations in his memoir, ‘No Holds Barred: My Years In Politics’. Rane in a chapter titled ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ wrote, “The Sena, typically, after finalising its list of candidates, sends a signed copy with the names to [party mouthpiece] Saamana for publication. As soon as our complete list with Saheb’s [Bal Thackeray] signature reached Saamana, Uddhavji learnt of it and unilaterally replaced 15 of those candidates with other names. We were all caught off-guard.”
Rane further wrote, “Interestingly and unfortunately, the candidates replaced by Uddhavji were so disgruntled that they contested the election on tickets from other parties or as independents; 11 of them won! Had the candidates we had originally chosen been retained, we would have had a tally of 69+11 seats. And with support from independents and BJP, we would’ve comfortably crossed the half-way mark and formed the government.”

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