There could not have been more befitting rehabilitation for Narayan Rane — who has had a long journey in politics from being a Shiv Sainik and later a Sena Chief Minister to spending 11-long years in the Congress to launching his own party and later merging it with the BJP — than his induction into the Union Cabinet on Wednesday.
Nearly 20 months after he merged his Maharashtra Swabhiman Party (MSP) with the BJP and kept waiting in the wings, Rane was finally rewarded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when the latter inducted him into the Union Cabinet ahead of another former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who may now have no alternative but to helm the party affairs in the State till the 2024 State Assembly polls.
Rane, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in March 2018 on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nomination, had been vigorously lobbying with the BJP’s central leadership for a decent rehabilitation ever since he joined the party on October 15, 2019.
