BJP Has Never Before Contested Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Seat, Key To Dominating Konkan — Will It Change This Time?

The last date for filing nominations for the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra set to go for polls in Phase-3 is on April 19.

While Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has declared its candidates for all the seats in this phase, the ruling Mahayuti coalition is yet to finalise its candidate for Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency.

On the MVA’s side, the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat has been allocated to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). The party has declared the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) from the constituency Vinayak Raut as its candidate for the upcoming polls.

In the ruling coalition Mahayuti’s camp, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena are at loggerheads over who gets to nominate their candidate over the seat.

From the BJP’s side, Rajya Sabha MP and Union Minister Narayan Rane has been lobbying hard for his candidature for quite some time now. Rane senior along with his both sons — former Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg MP Nilesh Rane and Nitesh Rane, the sitting MLA from Kankavli — had dissolved the Maharashtra Swabhimani Paksha and joined the BJP in October 2019.

As a part of posturing and exhibiting his strength, senior Rane has already started campaigning and addressing meetings in the constituency.

On the other hand, Ravindra Samant too has been seeking his candidature from the seat from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Samant is the elder brother of Ratnagiri MLA and Cabinet Minister Uday Samant. Until now senior Samant is supposed to have been the Samant junior’s man-on-the-ground, managing poll campaigns as well as the family business.

Considering that winning Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha seat that comprises six state assembly seats is the key to dominate Konkan, BJP is keen to have it in its kitty.

A Congress-Left Citadel Turned Shiv Sena Bastion

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.

In the past, electoral politics in Konkan was the turf of Congress and socialist parties like the Praja Samajwadi and the Peasants and Workers Party.

Ratnagiri and Rajapur Lok Sabha seats were no exception to this. Rajapur Lok Sabha Seat in fact had intellectual giants like Barrister Nath Pai and Madhu Dandawate representing it three and five times in a row.

However, post 1990, as Shiv Sena forged an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the scenario started changing with Sena asserting itself prominently in the Konkan region. As a result, both erstwhile Lok Sabha seats — Ratnagiri and Rajapur from 1996 onwards were held by winning candidates from the un-divided Shiv Sena of the past.

However, post creation of this seat after delimitation, the seat was first won in 2009 by Indian National Congress (INC) candidate Nilesh Rane, eldest son of Narayan Rane. Senior Rane, previously in Shiv Sena, and both his sons were in Congress then.

In the subsequent elections, Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut won the seat two times, first in 2014 and later in 2019. Post Sena split, Raut is now in the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and has been repeated as the party candidate for the Lok Sabha seat.

Why Is BJP Keen To Have And Win This Seat?

The BJP cadre in southern Konkan has always rued that despite having a strong cadre base, the party leadership in the past did not assert itself enough to grab the constituency during seat sharing talks with the Bal Thackeray-led undivided Shiv Sena.

A Guhagar-based senior karyakarta from the saffron party on condition of anonymity said, “We have had a support base here in Konkan for Jan Sangh earlier and BJP later even in the past when southern Konkan was dominated by Congress and the Left. The region has always had a strong network of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the paternal organisation of BJP. Senior Thackeray knew this and shrewdly kept BJP away. Somehow, the party (i.e. the BJP) too didn’t assert itself enough here.”

“Post Shiv Sena split, there is a palpable atmosphere of political confusion here. BJP should not let go of this opportunity. If it manages to have Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha seat now and win it, the party will get more leverage to ask for seats in the state assembly polls expected to happen later this year,” he added.

The state leadership of the BJP too is perhaps acquiescent of this feeling. The party had recently deputed Kalyan MLA Ravindra Chavan, a native of Ratnagiri, to inaugurate the party's campaign office in the Ratnagiri town.

As per reports, despite the party having sent invitations, none from the Shinde led Sena had turned up for the event. With Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis expected to take a final call tomorrow, it remains to be seen who will be the Mahayuti's face here.