Less than a year into the government, the ruling Shiv Sena's tolerance for criticism seems to be on the wane. After the complaint by a leader of the Eknath Shinde faction, the Aurangabad police, on Thursday, 6 April, arrested a rapper on the charges of defaming the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena government.
The Ambedkarite rapper Raj Mungase, who hails from Aurangabad, had uploaded his track on YouTube on 25 March. The track takes potshots at the government's functioning while its main thrust is the circumstances in which the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance was formed after the majority of the Sena MLAs deserted former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray under the leadership of Shinde.
Mungase makes a reference to '50 khoke (boxes)' in his song, a phrase that has become a refrain for the Opposition party leaders and cadre alike, and which hints that the rebel MLAs were lured with the promise of money. He also mentions the route the rebel MLAs took with alleged assistance of the BJP, from Surat in Gujarat to Guwahati in Assam to Goa before returning to Maharashtra, which eventually led to the collapse of Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in June 2022.