Maharashtra has put its law-and-order machinery on high alert, following Raj Thackeray’s threat over playing loudspeakers at mosques.

State police chief Rajnish Seth ordered officials to take action to prevent any unlawful incident. But the charges in an FIR filed against the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief on Tuesday over the speech he delivered in Aurangabad two days earlier pointed to a likely predicament faced by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and his party, the Shiv Sena.

Raj Thackeray was booked under IPC Sections 116, 117 and 143, which were seen as lenient by critics as these pertained to only abetting commission of an offence by the public and unlawful assembly.

“It’s strange (MP) Navneet Rana and her (MLA) husband Ravi Rana were arrested and booked under sedition for planning to read Hanuman Chalisa while Raj has been booked under these sections where he is threatening violence,” AIMIM MP from Aurangabad Imtiaz Jaleel said.

The issues raised by Raj Thackeray – bringing down loudspeakers from mosques and stopping Muslims from praying on roads – had been raised in the past by Sena founder Bal Thackeray himself, and the grassroot Shiv sainiks are finding it tough to disagree with the MNS chief’s stance. That is making the coalition government, particularly the Sena, cautious while dealing with it. “How can we disagree? This is the position that Balasaheb always held; we should have been raising this issue instead of Raj,” said a former Shakha Pramukh in Mumbai. Some Sena functionaries claimed that there was 99% support for the stand taken by Raj Thackeray.

The MNS chief recognises the pull of the issues raised by Bal Thackeray and has released old videos in which the Sena founder was seen talking against loudspeakers.