Independent legislators Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi Rana should chant the Hanuman Chalisa in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home rather than outside Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s house, the Shiv Sena said on Monday.

On April 23, the Mumbai Police had arrested the couple for threatening to recite the devotional hymn in front of Thackeray’s home. A day later, the couple was sent to 14-day judicial custody. A public prosecutor had said that Navneet Rana and Ravi Rana have been booked on charges of sedition.

While Navneet Rana is an MP from the Amravati constituency in eastern Maharashtra, Ravi Rana is an MLA from the Badnera seat in the Amravati district.

On Monday, an editorial in the Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana said that Hindutva is going strong in Maharashtra as Thackeray is the chief minister. “There is no ban on [reciting] Hanuman Chalisa in the state,” the editorial said. “Then why the insistence on chanting the Hanuman Chalisa at Matoshree [the residence of the Thackeray family]?”

The Shiv Sena said that if the Ranas wanted to organise a national event to chant the prayer, they could have done so outside the homes of Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The party alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “frustrated mind” was behind the protest by the Amravati legislators. “The way in which these people [BJP leaders] rushed to the police station, it would seem like action was being taken against Queen Chennamma and the Rani of Jhansi [Lakshmibai],” it remarked.

BJP’s Kirit Somaiya was one of the party leaders who had gone to the Khar police station to meet the legislators.

The Shiv Sena said that the BJP has “created a ruckus in the name of Hindutva”, and that it cannot be supported. The party claimed that Navneet Rana had earlier objected to taking oath in Parliament in the name of Ram.

It also claimed that the couple had got elected with the “secular backing” of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

While Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray had exhorted members to play the Hanuman Chalisa if the Maha Vikas Aghadi government failed to remove loudspeakers from mosques by May 3, the Ranas scaled up the matter by threatening to recite the devotional hymn outside the chief minister’s home.

On April 23, hundreds of Shiv Sena workers had surrounded the couple’s home in suburban Khar. They had also tried to force their way into their society, but were stopped by the police.

The workers sought an apology from Navneet Rana and Ravi Rana. Hours later the couple cancelled their plan, stating that the prime minister is scheduled to visit Mumbai on Sunday and they do not want any law and order problems to arise.

The Mumbai Police, however, arrested them for promoting enmity between different groups and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.

Ravi Rana told reporters on Sunday that the police had filed false offences against him and his wife.