Tit-For-Tat Hanuman Chalisa Offer For PM Modi After Uddhav Thackeray

Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) sent a stinging letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, requesting permission to read the Hanuman Chalisa and perform Namaz outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence. The stunt was clearly retaliation for an MP-MLA couple in Maharashtra making a similar threat against Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray over the weekend.

Fahmida Hassan Khan expressed her desire to read the Namaz, Hanuman Chalisa, Durga Chalisa, Namokar Mantra, and other religious texts outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official residence on Delhi’s Lok Kalyan Marg.

Ms Khan stated that she performs Durga Puja and recite the Hanuman Chalisa at her residence.

“However, given the rise in inflation and unemployment in the country, it has become necessary to wake up the Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi… If Ravi Rana and Navneet Rana can read Hanuman Chalisa outside Matoshree [Uddhav Thackeray’s residence], we should be allowed to offer Namaz, Hanuman Chalisa, and Durga Chalisa at PM Modi’s residence in Delhi,” she said.

A Mumbai court sentenced independent MP Navneet Rana and her MLA husband Ravi Rana to 14 days in judicial custody on Sunday, a day after they were arrested in connection with their plan to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside Mr Thackeray’s home.

According to an official, the court placed the politician couple in judicial remand after rejecting the city police’s request for their custody.

According to the official, Navneet Rana will be sent to the Byculla women’s jail, while her husband will be taken to the Arthur Road jail.

In the meantime, 13 Shiv Sena workers were detained on Sunday for allegedly protesting outside the Ranas’ Khar residence the day before. According to police, the party workers were later released on bail.

Ravi Rana, a Badnera MLA, and his wife, Navneet Rana, a Maharashtra MP, were arrested by city police on Saturday evening for allegedly “creating enmity between different groups.”

Following a day-long demonstration by Shiv Sena supporters outside their home, the couple decided to cancel their plan to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside Uddhav Thackeray’s home.

The Hanuman Chalisa and Azaan controversy erupted in Maharashtra earlier this month, just ahead of elections for India’s richest municipal body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or BMC, with the BJP and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) raising the issue to target the ruling Shiv Sena.

Following a call to arms by Raj Thackeray at a rally in Mumbai on the occasion of the Marathi New Year festival Gudi Padwa, BJP and MNS workers in various parts of Maharashtra began playing the Hanuman Chalisa over loudspeakers. A BJP leader in the state even offered to fund loudspeakers so that the Hanuman Chalisa could be played in public.

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