Nagpur: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray while addressing a mega rally in Aurangabad warned that if loudspeakers are not removed by May 4, his party workers will start playing Hanuman Chalisa.
He added that the party ‘won’t keep quiet after May 4.’ “What happens after that in Maharashtra, I don’t know. I want to tell the cops here (to) go out and start removing these loudspeakers right now,” he said.
The MNS supremo said that from May 4, all Hindus should play Hanuman Chalisa at double volume loudspeakers atop the mosques. He added, “If they (Muslims) don’t understand nicely, we will show them the power of Maharashtra.” He further said that all loudspeakers even from temples and others should be removed but first they should be removed from the Mosques.
While attacking the three-tiered Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, he questioned if the Uttar Pradesh government can order to remove the loudspeakers then why can’t the Maharashtra government do the same. He also said that the issue had been brought up and debated in the past too and it’s not that now it has been raised.
Thackeray believes that the issue of loudspeakers is not a religious one but a social issue. “But if you make it a religious issue, we will answer it with religion,” he said.
In response to his comments in the mega rally, Maharashtra home minister Dilip Walse Patil said that the MNS chief’s aim is to divide the society. “His speech was an attempt to create a divide in society and hatred. Police will listen to his speech and decide what is objectionable and a decision will be taken on this,” he said on Monday.