BJP Set To Contest In Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg For First Time, Gives Ticket To Former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared Narayan Rane as its Lok Sabha candidate from Maharashtra's Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency on Thursday (18 April).

The seat is going to polls in Phase 3 and the last day of nomination filing is 19 April. Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) had declared its candidates for all the seats in this phase earlier.

However, the ruling Mahayuti coalition could finalise its candidate for the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency just a day before nomination filing closes.

Narayan Rane served as a Union Minister since 2021. He got the ticket for this seat after lobbying hard. From MVA, sitting MP Vinayak Raut is contesting on the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) symbol.

Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg is the largest Lok Sabha seat in the coastal Konkan region. The constituency was created after the 2008 de-limitation exercise by merging the erstwhile Ratnagiri and Rajapur Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP has never before contested this seat as it was in alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena earlier, which always got this seat to contest on and has been winning here for the last two Lok Sabha elections.

In 2009, Narayan Rane's eldest son Nilesh Rane won here on a Congress ticket. Both his sons were in Congress then. Senior Rane was previously in Shiv Sena and then Congress.

Narayan Rane was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for a few months in 1999 to lead the coalition government of BJP-Shiv Sena. His term as a Rajya Sabha MP ended earlier this month.