Raj Thackeray urges PM Modi to bring Uniform Civil Code & law on population control

|HT|

Maharashtra Navnirmal Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring the Uniform Civil Code at the earliest and also to bring a law on population control. This is not the first time that the MNS chief voiced his support for the Uniform Civil Code, but his appeal to PM Modi comes at a time he is at the centre of the Hanuman Chalisa controversy following his threat to play Hanuman Chalisa at mosques if illegal loudspeakers are not taken down. He also said Aurangabad should be renamed Sambhajinagar after Maratha ruler Sambhaji. At a rally in Pune, held after the MNS chief recently cancelled his Ayodhya visit, Raj Thackeray said a trap was laid out for him by those who did not like his loudspeaker protest. "But I did not fall for this trap as I did not want my MNS activists to go to jail," Raj Thackeray said.

Amid the loudspeaker row, Raj Thackeray's Ayodhya visit created a stir as BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh said Raj Thackeray should apologise for his past remarks against the north Indians before he comes to Ayodhya. "Why have certain people seeking apology after 14-15 years?" Raj Thackeray said.

Talking about the Hanuman Chalisa row, Raj Thackeray said he had asked his party men to play Hanuman Chalisa if the Maharashtra government failed to remove illegal loudspeakers from mosques. "But the Rana couple wanted to go to Matoshree and recite Hanuman Chalisa. Why? Is Matoshree a mosque? And then after all this, the couple were seen eating together with Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut," Raj Thackeray said. The MNS chief hit out at Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's 'our Hindutva-their Hindutva' remark and said, "What is this real Hindutva, fake Hindutva thing? Are we selling washing powder?"

Raj Thackeray also informed his party workers that he will undergo surgery on June 1 and will take one and a half months to recover.

Ahead of Raj Thackeray's rally on Sunday, Pune Police warned the party that no speaker should give any inflammatory speech.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)