Raj Thackeray at the wedding of the daughter of Mumbai police commissioner Dhananjay N Jadhav (left) on Tuesday. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, Feb. 7: Raj Thackeray kept his annual date with an adventure sports camp in Pune today but state capital Mumbai remained abuzz with reports of the breakaway Sena leader’s imminent arrest.

Pune police asked the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief to shift the venue of a programme tomorrow because it fell on the route of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is arriving on a two-day visit.

Sources said Raj, who broke away from the Shiv Sena following a personality clash with cousin Uddhav, could be arrested for inciting violence against north Indian migrants. He was likely to be booked under Section 153(A) of the Indian Penal Code that carries a maximum punishment of three years in jail.

Raj might not mind because an arrest would only give him an edge over Uddhav in the sons-of-soil campaign. It could also help the Congress score with north Indians.

Officials said the Maharashtra advocate general’s opinion was the government should book Raj under the section. “There is also a provision of imposing a fine and it is possible Raj might get away with that,” said lawyer and retired IPS officer Y.P. Singh.

“There is enough evidence under IPC 153(A) to arrest and chargesheet him for his speeches. But then again, under this particular law, government sanction is required for going ahead with prosecution. As has been seen in many cases, the government has cited law-and-order problems as a reason to stall prosecution.”

Raj’s estranged uncle Bal Thackeray, booked under the same act in 2000 for inciting passions between Hindus and Muslims during the 1993 riots, got away despite the government’s approval for prosecution.

“Section 458 of the IPC provides that a chargesheet has to be filed within three years of an offence in cases where the maximum punishment is three years,” Singh said.

In Bal Thackeray’s case, the government gave the go-ahead for prosecution after seven years.

Legal experts, however, said this was unlikely in Raj’s case because the Congress-NCP coalition now ruled the state, unlike the BJP-Sena alliance that delayed matters in the elder Thackeray’s case.

“Videos of Raj Thackeray’s speeches will be scanned before any legal action is taken. An FIR has already been lodged. The law will certainly come into play. It is difficult to say exactly how long this process might take. But the government needs to re-affirm the public’s faith in the law and order machinery,” said a home department official.

The official also said though the advocate general had given his “opinion”, it was not an official advice yet. “At the end of the day, Raj Thackeray’s arrest will be a political decision,” the official added.

The sources said Raj was likely to be arrested on Friday after chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh returns from Delhi, where he had gone to discuss the matter with Union home minister Shivraj Patil.