BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, made news last week after he demanded an apology from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on his pejorative comments on north Indians settled in Maharashtra, stating clearly that the latter would only be allowed to visit the Ram Temple site in Ayodhya once the apology was tendered.
The comment went unremarked in BJP circles, a tacit approval in fact, and a clear sign that while the BJP found MNS leader Raj Thackeray useful in terms of exposing the ideological fault lines between the Shiv Sena and its allies in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Indian National Congress, via the Hanuman Chalisa controversy, it was ambiguous with regard to electoral partnership with the MNS for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.
According to senior BJP leaders in Delhi, the Hanuman Chalisa/loudspeaker controversy, where Mr. Thackeray and his party demanded removal of loudspeakers from mosques, failing which his party workers would recite the Hanuman Chalisa as loudly, has had a mixed response.
