Narayan Rane slams Sharad Pawar, warns of consequences if rebel MLAs are 'harmed' in Maharashtra Assembly

Union minister Narayan Rane on Friday took on NCP chief Sharad Pawar, alleging that the latter was threatening rebel Shiv Sena MLAs, and said if anything happened to them in the Maharashtra Assembly, there will be consequences.

Earlier in the day, Pawar said that the rebel MLAs led by Eknath Shinde who are camping in Guwahati will have to come to the Maharashtra Assembly eventually, and the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government will win a trust vote despite the rebellion.





Rane, in a series of tweets in Marathi issued in the evening, said, "Sharad Pawar is threatening the (rebel) MLAs that they should come to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. They will definitely come and vote as per their will. If any harm comes to them, it will be difficult to go home.

"The MVA was formed to serve personal interests. Nobody should boast about its work," said Rane, a former Shiv Sena leader who quit and joined the Congress in 2005 and later crossed over to the BJP.

Without naming Pawar, he said, "There are some people who have a long history of rebelling from time to time. It is unbecoming (for such people) to issue unwarranted threats at an unsuitable age." Pawar formed the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 after quitting Congress.

He had quit Congress earlier too but had returned. Rane, meanwhile, also said that Eknath Shinde was his "old colleague and a friend". Going by the number of MLAs Shinde has with him, the "roadshow organized by the Chief Minister" (Uddhav Thackeray) on Wednesday evening was nothing but "cowardice and selfishness," the BJP leader said.