mumbai

Updated: Sep 21, 2017 17:46 IST

Senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane on Thursday announced he was quitting the party as well as the membership of the state legislative council.

Making the announcement at a meeting of his supporters at Kudal in Sindhudurg district of coastal Konkan area, Rane slammed the grand old party’s leadership, and said he would announce his next move in a fortnight.

“A lot of people are with me... I will empty both the Congress and the Shiv Sena,” he said.

Rane had quit the Shiv Sena in 2005, and was unhappy with the Congress over not being made chief minister though he had been promised the same. He is now negotiating with the BJP.

Rane began his political career as a shakha pramukh (local ward chief) in the Sena and rose up the ranks to become chief minister of the Shiv Sena-BJP government in 1999. He quit the party in 2005 following the emergence of Uddhav Thackeray as the political heir of Sena founder late Bal Thackeray.

According to BJP leaders, the announcement by Rane and his sons about forming separate groups and contesting Lok Sabha elections from Sindhudurg has not gone down well with them. The BJP leadership is wary about the autocratic style of functioning of Ranes and hence, a group of leaders in Maharashtra is against his induction in the party.