A historical win by a margin of 10,087 votes has proven that Vishwajit is synonym to victory, no matter on which party ticket the leader contests the Assembly elections or who his contender is. Vishwajit, just like his father- the longest serving MLA and former Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane- has demonstrated that Valpoi will always be his bastion.

“In Sattari, whether it is Poriem or Valpoi Assembly seat, people vote for Rane and not for any party. Every vote that I and my father get is for us as individuals and not as candidate of any party”. These were the words of Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, just before the Valpoi by-election. And it won’t be wrong if we say that junior Rane has proven this very political fact during the August 23 by-polls.
A historical win by a margin of 10,087 votes has proven that Vishwajit is synonym to victory, no matter on which party ticket the leader contests the Assembly elections or who his contender is. Vishwajit, just like his father- the longest serving MLA and former Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane- has demonstrated that Valpoi will always be his bastion.
On August 28, when the by-election results were announced, Vishwajit- the BJP candidate- stunned everyone when he got a vote share of 70.17 percent with 16,167 (plus 21 postal ballots) casting vote in his favour. He defeated Congress candidate Roy Naik- son of former Home Minister Ravi Naik, who got 6,101 votes of the total 23,038 votes the constituency recorded on the polling day.
Independent candidate Rohidas Gaonkar scored 316 votes. Here too, NOTA stood in the third position with 454 votes.
The constituency, which consists of 46 polling stations, saw Vishwajit surpassing his contenders across every booth. Right from round one, with a lead of 3500 votes, Health Minister continued to increase his victory margin, which reached to 10,087 (including 21 postal ballots) by the end of fourth round.
“I am thankful to the people of Valpoi for reposing faith in me. Whatever I have achieved today is due to my father’s blessing and love of the people,” Vishwajit had reacted after his victory.
The constituency that witnessed Congress’ growth all this while under Rane, for the very first time, saw saffron flag flying high. BJP had never managed to get hold of Valpoi in the previous decade.
Hailing from a family of political background, Vishwajit plunged into politics in 2007 when he contested as an independent from Valpoi constituency. He won the seat by defeating BJP’s Puti Gaonkar wherein Rane got 8,590 votes while Puti managed 5,051 votes. The margin between the two was 3,549 votes.
After extending his support to the then ruling Congress-led coalition government, where his father Pratapsingh was a part of- Rane officially joined the party forcing by-election in the constituency in 2010. By this time, his fan-following increased manifold leading to an easy victory.
Junior Rane got 11,642 votes while BJP, that pitted another candidate H S Tukaram against him, faced defeat yet again. The total votes polled in favour of Tukaram were 3,237. Vishwajit’s victory margin witnessed a double growth with 7405 votes.
Vishwajit became Minister under former Digambar Kamat-led government. Health and Agriculture were the crucial portfolio’s allocated to him.
Vishwajit, during his small stint of less than two years, became most talked Health Minister. Introduction of mediclaim scheme, followed by 108 ambulance service and also creating medical infrastructures and procuring advanced equipments were some of his achievements. However, his failure was marked with alleged corruption cases with recruitment scams filed before anti-corruption branch and Lokayukta.
Congress faced a humiliating defeat in the 2012 general elections but Vishwajit and his father retained their respective seats. BJP fielded Satyavijay Naik against Vishwajit whose vote share witnessed a sharp rise to 12,412 votes against Naik’s 9,473 votes.
However, the victory margin reduced drastically to mere 2,932 votes. Naik gave a tough fight to Vishwajit by almost shaking his bastion.
For the February 2017 Assembly election, Vishwajit who contested on Congress ticket again, secured 13,493 votes winning the seat fourth time in a row.
However, unhappy with party’s failure to form the government despite having 17 MLAs in hand, Vishwajit was forced to have a dramatic exit from the party. The day he chooses to quit was when Manohar Parrikar was asked to prove majority on the floor of the House.
Vishwajit joined BJP on April 6 amidst huge supporters from his constituency and was inducted in the Manohar Parrikar cabinet.