Former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane is likely to be inducted into the Vilasrao Deshmukh Cabinet next Saturday after he quit the Assembly today. He had been elected to the Assembly on a Shiv Sena ticket for a fourth term last year.Sources said Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has assured Rane that one of the MLAs belonging to his group will also get a Cabinet berth.Initial reports suggest the berth will go to Vinayak Nimhan, the Shiv Sena MLA from Shivajinagar in Pune. Rane had recently named Nimhan the Sena chief whip in the Vidhan Sabha.Rane is reportedly eyeing the revenue portfolio which he held in the Manohar Joshi Government before he became chief minister for around eight months in 1999. This has led sources to say: "Watch out, he would follow the same route (revenue portfolio followed by chief ministership) in the Congress."The Congress reportedly offered Rane a Union Cabinet berth but the former Chief Minister said he wished to remain in state politics.The Congress has three Cabinet-rank vacancies among its berth quota. The party got 19 ministerial slots, including that of Chief Minister, under the deal with the Nationalist Congress Party.Sources said Sonia has given Rane the green signal for organising a massive rally for her at Mumbai at which he has vowed to mobilise four to five lakh people from his Konkan stronghold. With Rane set to seek a big role in Mumbai and Konkan, existing equations within the Congress are bound to be affected.The NCP is as disappointed over Rane’s future course of action as the Congress is jubilant. Sources in the NCP admitted: “It (Rane’s impending entry into the Congress) is a setback to us.” The party has clearly missed a chance to overshadow the Congress in Maharashtra.NCP cadre and Rane supporters have been at loggerheads for a few years now. They had set the former CM’s house in Sindhudurg district on fire after an NCP activist was killed. Rane’s imminent entry into the Congress will add to the unease between the partners.
