Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray held a rally at Pune on Sunday, 22nd of May 2022. In this rally, he said, “I told that if the Azaan is heard from the loudspeakers on a mosque, then play Hanuman Chalisa in front of it. The Rana couple got up and went to ‘Matoshree’ (CM Uddhav Thackeray’s residence) to chant Hanuman Chalisa. Is ‘Matoshree’ a mosque?” Raj Thackeray held this rally after canceling the Ayodhya visit that he had announced in his earlier public meetings.
Earlier, Thackeray had said that if the Azaan via loudspeakers doesn’t stop in the state of Maharashtra, he will install loudspeakers outside mosques and play Hanuman Chalisa at double the volume. Following his statements, Amravati MP Navneet Rana and her MLA husband Ravi Rana jumped on the bandwagon. They announced that they will recite Hanuman Chalisa outside the CM residence ‘Matoshree’.
However, protests by Shiv Sena members against them caused them to cancel their plans. They were subsequently booked under various sections, including sedition, and arrested by the Mumbai Police. They have since been granted conditional bail in the cases against them.
Apart from targeting the Rana couple over their decision to head to ‘Matoshree’, Raj Thackeray also addressed the issue of cancelation of his Ayodhya visit. He said, “The day we announced our stand against the loudspeaker, on the same day I declared the date of going to Ayodhya in Pune. Within a few days, discussions started that Raj Thackeray should apologize. I was watching everything that was going on. I was getting information from Mumbai, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. There came a time when I realized that this was a trap. We shouldn’t fall into this trap because all these things started in Maharashtra and were controlled from here.”
Explaining his motive behind the Ayodhya visit, Raj Thackeray said, “It is necessary to visit the Ram Janmabhoomi. But I think many of you weren’t even born then (at the time of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement). There were no channels like today. At that time, Doordarshan was the only channel. It used to run newsreels on television. I still remember it was the Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh when the karsevaks from all over India went to Ayodhya, and our karsevaks were killed. I had seen the bodies of all those karsevaks floating in the Saryu river.”
Thackeray further added, “I wanted to have a darshan of Ram Janambhoomi, but I also wanted to see the place where my karsevaks were killed. Many do not understand the sentiments in politics. Let it be. If I had decided to go there tomorrow, many of you from Maharashtra would have come there. If something had happened there, you would have been trapped with cases and been put in jail. I thought I wouldn’t cause harm and hurt to my men like this. All these key officials would also be trapped with cases and no one would be here at the time of the upcoming election. This was their plan.”
About Brijbhushan Singh of BJP who had asked Raj Thackeray to apologize before entering Uttar Pradesh, Raj Thackeray said, “An MP gets up and challenges the chief minister there. Is it even possible? It has many layers. There are some that I can’t even talk about. Have you woken up now? Raj Thackeray should apologize and so on? And he remembers it now after 12-14 years later? Everyone should remember that this is leading in the wrong direction. If it is all about apologizing, then listen, there is a member in Gujarat and his name is Alpesh Thakur. After the rape of a girl in Gujarat, the people of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar were killed, in one night 10-15 thousand Biharis, Uttar Pradesh people were driven out. Who’s going to apologize from there?”
He further said, “I thought Maharashtra would be enraged when a MIM man went to Aurangzeb’s grave. But Maharashtra is cold. See his grave at the base of Pratapgarh, whom Shivachhatrapati had killed. It has expanded to 15 to 20 thousand square feet today. The mosque of Afzal Khan has stood there. Funding is coming in for that. Who and how is giving this funding? Because we’re sitting quietly. We have nothing to do with it.”
Raj Thackeray, who is set to undergo hip bone surgery, said that he will soon give a letter to the people of Maharashtra. He said, “I’m going to give you a letter. Everyone is requested that the letter should reach every house. This is a movement. It doesn’t have to be done on the road every time. But the people’s cooperation is necessary. Then only these things like loudspeakers in mosques will stop. It will take two to four weeks for recovery after the surgery next week. After a month or two, I’ll be back in front of you. Till then we continue this movement. The letter is to be delivered to the homes of all Hindu brothers.”
