‘No longer interested in elections’: Narayan Rane’s son Nilesh, 42, quits active politics

Nilesh’s surprise announcement came in the backdrop of his failure to revive his political career in Maharashtra and his inability to get “acclimatised” to the BJP which he joined along with his father in 2019.

An avid cricketer, Nilesh Rane’s political career bloomed largely in the shadow of his father. He got into politics after his father quit the Shiv Sena to join the Congress in 2005, playing a key role as an election manager in the ensuing by-election from Malwan which Rane contested successfully on a Congress ticket.

In 2008, Nilesh earned his doctorate from the Mumbai University, writing a thesis on Maharashtra’s industrial growth. A year later, the Congress awarded him a Lok Sabha poll ticket despite a brief rebellion by his father who was miffed with the party for not being made the chief minister following the change of guard in the wake of 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, when Vilasrao Deshmukh was replaced by Ashok Chavan as the CM.

In the 2009 parliamentary election, Nilesh won from the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat with a margin of about 50,000 votes, defeating veteran leader Suresh Prabhu, who had contested on a Sena ticket.

नमस्कार,

मी सक्रिय राजकारणातून कायमचा बाजूला होत आहे, आता राजकरणात मन रमत नाही, इतर काही कारण नाही.

मागच्या १९/२० वर्षा मध्ये आपण सगळ्यांनी मला खूप प्रेम दिलं, कारण नसताना माझ्या सोबत राहिलात त्या बद्दल मी आपला खूप आभारी आहे. BJP मध्ये खूप प्रेम भेटलं आणि BJP सारख्या एका उत्तम…

— Nilesh N Rane (@meNeeleshNRane) October 24, 2023

Nilesh was however unable to repeat his victory in the 2014 election, losing his seat by 1.5 lakh votes.

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rane had decided to switch his loyalties again and shifted to the BJP, which nominated him to the Rajya Sabha.

While Nilesh did not also formally join the BJP till October 2019, the BJP had propped him in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls which he contested unsuccessfully on the ticket of his father’s Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha party.

Despite a PhD and foreign education, there was a rough edge to Nilesh’s personality which was said to have acted as a major impediment to his political career.

From being accused of road rage to allegedly kidnapping political rivals, Nilesh was dubbed as the “enfant terrible” of the Rane clan. His personal attacks on the Thackeray family and his brusque manner is said to have offended his political rivals as well his own partymen.

While his brother Nitesh gained a foothold in electoral politics, winning the Kankavli Assembly seat for two successive terms, once on a Congress ticket and the next as a BJP nominee, Nilesh was finding it difficult to replicate it.

It has been speculated that he was keen on contesting the 2024 Assembly election from Kudal but was yet to get a green signal from the BJP.

His failure to make political headway has now led to Nilesh putting out a public post, stating that he is “no longer interested” in politics or elections and that he is “stepping aside from active politics”.

“I am a small man, but politics has given me the chance to learn a lot… I don’t have the enthusiasm for contesting elections anymore. Critics will criticize but I don’t like wasting my time and that of others where it doesn’t suit my heart. I apologize if I have unintentionally offended anyone,” Nilesh said in his post, thanking the BJP for its support.