Keri (Sattari): A book chronicling the personal and political journey of Goa’s longest serving former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane has anecdotes after anecdotes of changing political landscape of this coastal state.
The book “Maker of Modern Goa: The Untold Story of Pratapsingh Rane” authored by his wife Vijayadevi Rane was launched on Sunday in a massive event held in Sattari in presence of former union minister Suresh Prabhu, chief minister Pramod Sawant and others.
Rane family comprising of Pratapsingh Rane, his minister son Vishwajit and his MLA daughter-in-law Deviya along with the author, Vijayadevi, were present for the event which was attended by over 30,000 people at Bhumika Ground, Keri, Sattari.
In the introduction of this 236-page-long book, the writer, who has been married to Rane for over 55 years now, says that the book is a dynamic and engaging biography that reveals how he brought in stability and sane, reasoned governance to Goa’s volatile and unstable politics every time he became the chief minister.
Rane is the first chief minister of Goa state and its longest-serving MLA, completing over 50 years of his career.
The author has recounted various instances that sums up the kind of politics that was being practiced in the 80s era in this developing state, which was liberated from Portuguese rule in the year 1961.
In one of the chapter, the write recalls how, in the early 80s, Rane helped one of his political rival MLA Dilkush Desai to be airlifted using Indian Navy helicopter to Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai after being shot with a pellet gun.
While the MLA recovered, many years later, the same man behaved in unexpected manner and on Goa Legislator’s Day in 2007, and flung packet of cow-dung on him (Rane). Rane, who was then the CM, did not react and instead refused to press charges against him.
“This is democracy, it’s nothing, these things happen,” Rane told media persons.
The writer has narrated the inside stories of how Congress party despite having more number of MLAs than BJP after 2017 Goa assembly election did not manage to form the government.
Vijayadevi recalls how after weighing the option of retiring from the politics, Rane finally in the year 2022 decided not to contest the assembly polls, choosing to retire from public life.
“There comes a time when we must step back and let other younger people take over. There comes a time when a man requires rest and time to look after himself…,” the book has quoted Rane.
Rane had recorded eleven successive wins from Sattari constituencies (which was later known as Poriem Assembly segment)
