Hanuman Chalisa row: Arrested MP writes to Lok Sabha speaker on Sena, Hindutva

Hanuman Chalisa row: Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi were arrested by the Mumbai Police on Saturday. The arrest came hours after they dropped their plan to chant ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ outside Matoshree, the private residence of chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Amravati MP Navneet Rana on Monday lashed out at the Uddhav Thackeray government over the Hanuman Chalisa row, which resulted in the MP and her husband's arrest.

Amravati MP Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi Rana.

Accusing the Shiv Sena of giving up its ‘avowed’ Hindutva principles for power, Rana in her letter to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla said, "It's my honest & bona fide belief that Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray completely strayed from its avowed Hindutva principles for obvious reasons since it wanted to betray public mandate and form post-poll alliance with Congress and NCP".

Rana and her husband Ravi, who is an MLA, were arrested by the Mumbai Police on Saturday. The arrest came hours after they dropped their plan to chant ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ outside Matoshree, the private residence of chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Rana and her husband were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Bombay Police Act for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups. Later, they were also slapped with a sedition charge.

A Mumbai court on Sunday sent the couple to 14-day judicial custody in the case. Earlier in the day, the Shiv Sena in its mouthpiece Saamana hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party and said that Hindutva is a culture and not chaos.

 

“Hindutva is doing fine in Maharashtra because it is being led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. There is no restriction on reciting Hanuman Chalisa in the state, but why was there an insistence to recite it outside Matoshree? The chaos resorted to by the BJP cannot be supported. Hindutva is a culture, not chaos," the mouthpiece said.

Navneet Rana had won the 2019 election with the help of “secular” parties like the Congress and the NCP, but has now entered the BJP camp, the Sena further claimed.