Faced torture in jail, but it couldn't break my belief: Amravati MP Navneet Rana

Lok Sabha MP Navneet Rana on Thursday claimed she had faced “torture” in jail, but it did not break her belief, as she got emotional recalling her imprisonment last year after she gave a call to recite Hanuman Chalisa outside the residence of then Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Addressing a gathering in Amravati on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti and her birthday on Thursday, Rana also said Thackeray’s pride won’t last. “The Independent MP from Amravati and her husband and MLA Ravi Rana were arrested in April last year after they gave a call to recite Hanuman Chalisa hymns outside Thackeray’s private residence Matoshree in Mumbai. The couple later got bail.

Also read: Hanuman Chalisa row: Mumbai police file chargesheet against Rana couple

Recalling that time, Navneet Rana got emotional and said her children used to ask what she had done and why she was jailed. “Despite the torture that I had to face in the jail, they could not break my belief,” she said.

The parliamentarian said fingers were pointed at her when her husband had come to meet her while she was hospitalised (after imprisonment) and cried on meeting him. She hit out at Thackeray, saying his “pride and attitude” would not last. “Lord Ram has vanquished the attitude of many heavyweights,” she added.

The MP further targeted Thackeray, saying he could not keep his party and its ideology intact, a reference to the vertical split in the Shiv Sena following a rebellion last year which led to the collapse of the Thackeray-led state government. “(Sena founder) Balasaheb Thackeray would be in tears seeing that his own son could not keep his ideology and buried it,” she added.

(With Agency inputs)