Mumbai: Union Minister Narayan Rane was arrested today over his comment on slapping Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for what he called his “ignorance of the year India won Independence”.
Rane, who joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet in July as Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, is the first central minister to be arrested in 20 years.
He could not win a last-minute reprieve from the Bombay High Court, which rejected an urgent hearing on his petition asking for three FIRs against him to be scrapped.
Rane’s lawyer told the court: “The police have arrived to arrest him, they are waiting at his doorstep.” The High Court responded: “Please follow the procedure. Don’t make us do the job of the registry.”
The Shiv Sena filed cases against Rane over his remarks on Monday at a “Jan Ashirwad Yatra” organised nationwide by the BJP for new ministers in PM Modi’s government. He claimed Thackeray forgot the year of independence during his August 15 address and had to check with his aides mid-speech.
Meanwhile, BJP national president J P Nadda described Narayan Rane’s arret as “violation of constitutional values’’.
“The arrest of Union Minister Narayan Rane by the Maharashtra government is a violation of constitutional values. We will neither be scared nor suppressed by such action,’’ he said in a tweet.