In 2022, the Pramod Sawant led Government conferred life long cabinet status on Rane.

[1] Rane has been a member of the Indian National Congress since the mid-1970s, and was earlier a prominent figure in the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party.

In the 1980s, dissidents within the ruling Congress party sought to dislodge Rane from power, by appealing to New Delhi mostly unsuccessfully.

His critics, like the then editor of the local Goa newspaper Herald or O Heraldo, Rajan Narayan criticised Rane for not doing enough as the leader of the Opposition.

Rane became chief minister after the Congress's first-ever win in Goa in 1980 mainly as a "consensus candidate", after a bitter battle for the top political slot between the then two Congress heavyweights, Dr Wilfred de Souza and Ananta Narcina Naik, also known as Babu Naik.

Naik was subsequently largely marginalised in state politics, while Souza served under Rane in some of his cabinets.

Rane then served as chief minister for the sixth time, for two years until the June 2007 state elections.