Manas Dasgupta
NEW FRLHI, Sept 20: The long running battle between the Shiv Sena chief and the former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and his one-time party colleague and union minister Narayan Rane culminated with Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordering part demolition of the unauthorised construction of Rane’s eight-storey bungalow in posh Juhu area in Mumbai.
The High Court also refused to entertain any plea for regularisation of the illegal construction or staying the implementation of its order for six weeks to enable the union minister to approach the Supreme Court. The High Court ordered the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to carry out the demolition within two weeks and submit its compliance report to the court within a week after demolition.
While directing the Mumbai civic body to demolish the unauthorised construction, the High Court noted that the building violated the Floor Space Index (FSI) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules. A division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and Kamal Khata said the BMC cannot be permitted to consider and allow the second application filed by a company run by the Rane family, seeking regularisation of the unauthorised construction as it would encourage “wholesale unauthorised constructions.”
The court directed the BMC to demolish the unauthorised parts within a period of two weeks and submit a compliance report to the court one week thereafter. The bench also imposed a cost of ₹ 10 lakh on Rane and directed for the amount to be deposited towards the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority within two weeks. Rane’s advocate Shardul Singh sought that the court stay its order for six weeks so that he could approach the Supreme Court in appeal, but the bench rejected it. The court dismissed the petition filed by Kaalkaa Real Estates, a company owned by Rane’s family seeking directions to the BMC to decide their second application uninfluenced by the orders passed by civic body earlier.
The BMC had in June this year rejected the regularisation application, noting that there were violations in the construction. The company filed a second application in July, saying it was seeking regularisation of a smaller portion as compared to what it had sought previously, and under new provisions of the Development Control and Promotion Regulation.
The High Court order is seen as a new chapter in the bitter feud that he has been involved in with the Thackeray-led Sena for 17 years. Having started out in the Sena when just in his 20s, the 72-year-old Rane spent most of his rising years in the party till he openly revolted against its founder Balasaheb Thackeray naming his son Uddhav as his successor. In February 1999, Rane had hit his peak when Sena supremo Bal Thackeray picked him as the new Chief Minister after Manohar Joshi was asked to step down. But he had to step down in nine months, after the Sena-BJP was voted out of power in the 1999 Assembly elections.
Soon after, Rane had found his ambitions snipped as Balasaheb chose Uddhav as his political successor, and the latter tightened his grip on the party. In 2003, when the Sena, at a convention in Mahabaleshwar, named Uddhav as party’s “executive president”, Rane was one of the very few Sena leaders to oppose the move. As a result, in 2005, Rane was expelled from the Sena by Balasaheb for “anti-party activities”, on the allegation that he sold party posts and election tickets.
Rane subsequently joined the Congress, taking along a dozen Sena MLAs. He was made the Revenue Minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh led Congress-NCP government that was voted back to power in the 2004 Assembly elections.
But, within three years of joining the Congress, Rane again revolted, after the high command ordered a change of guard and appointed Ashok Chavan as the CM in December 2008. A miffed Rane claimed he was betrayed and accused Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi of having gone back on their words to make him the CM. But a month down the line Rane apologised to the party and was reinducted into the state Cabinet in February 2009 as Industries Minister.
After the Congress-NCP was voted back to power in 2009, Rane first served as Revenue and then Industries Minster for the entire tenure of the government. In the 2014 Assembly elections Rane failed to retain his constituency Kudal, losing to the Sena. Eighteen months later, he opted for a by-election from Bandra East, the constituency in which Uddhav resides, but lost again.
The successive electoral defeats forced Rane to review his political trajectory and he decided to part ways with the Congress in a bid to cosy up with the BJP. In 2017, he quit the Congress saying the party had no future and formed his own party, the Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksh. By 2018, Rane was in the BJP camp, and after declaring support to it, got elected to the Rajya Sabha. In October 2019, in the run-up to the Maharashtra Assembly elections Rane merged his party with the BJP in anticipation of the party’s victory.
But the BJP-Sena tie broke down over the chief minister’s post and Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena joined hands with the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government and Sena’s relations with the BJP continued to deteriorate. As the BJP used Rane’s deep dislike for Udhhav to its advantage to mount personal attacks against Udhhav,
the Shiv Sena-ruled BMC had in 2017 issued notice to Rane over “illegal construction” at his Juhu bungalow – in what was seen as the party getting back at its bete noire.
There was no movement in the matter after that. The action now follows Mumbai-based RTI activist Santosh Daundkar, who has been campaigning on the issue, complaining that no action had been taken in five years. Following this, the BMC had issued a notice to Rane for inspection of the bungalow, which was challenged in court by Rane and his family. The matter then went to the High Court, which Tuesday ordered the demolition of the illegal structures.