Narayan Rane arrested in Maharashtra, let out on bail
The HinduUnion Minister Narayan Rane was on Tuesday arrested and taken into custody by the police at Sangameshwar in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra for his statement on Monday that he would have slapped State Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for forgetting the year India got freedom during his Independence Day speech. ‘Against protocol’ While BJP Leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis admitted that Mr. Rane ought to have shown restraint in his statements, State BJP president Chandrakant Patil said it was “against protocol” for a State government to arrest a Union Minister. “All this arrest drama has been contrived by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to divert the public’s attention from the fact that Mr. Rane has been receiving overwhelming support in the Konkan region during his ‘Jan Ashirwad Yatra’,” Mr. Patil claimed. The induction of Mr. Rane in the Union Cabinet last month is being viewed as an aggressive move on the BJP’s part to neutralise the Sena in the Konkan. ‘Sena baiting’ Himself a former Shiv Sainik and an important face of the Maratha community, Mr. Rane’s ‘Sena baiting’ has grown even more strident since he exited the Congress in 2017.