Nw Delhi, Dec. 20 :    Nw Delhi, Dec. 20:  Less than five months after its aborted bid to tackle Bal Thackeray for 'inciting' riots, the Congress-led coalition government is gearing up to confront the Shiv Sena chief for taking a swipe at Muslims. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said Thackeray had apparently hurt the sentiments of the minority community through a front-page interview in Saamna, the Sena mouthpiece. Deshmukh said he had asked the law department to examine the interview and suggest 'appropriate action' against Thackeray. In the three-part interview, the Sena boss had pleaded that Muslims be disenfranchised to make them 'nidharmi Hinduwadi'. Thackeray, who is known for frequent anti-Muslim outbursts, was arrested on July 25 for inflammatory editorials in the Saamna. But the case was rejected by the metropolitan magistrate's court that very day on the ground that the charges had been framed too late. The government has moved the high court. The present interview has given the government another chance to nail Thackeray and shocked the Muslims. 'He is losing his balance and trying to whip up a communal frenzy,' writer Rafiq Zakaria said. 'Nothing could please Gen. Musharraf more than what Thackeray has said.' Deshmukh said the government would ask the police to frame 'specific' charges against Thackeray after it received the law department's report on the interview. The Sena chief today defended himself, saying he had asked for disenfranchising Muslims to end votebank politics. All major political parties, he said, were using the community as a votebank. The government appears to be treading carefully this time so as not to repeat the July mistake. Though it claims to have a good case against the Sena chief, it has sought legal opinion before pressing charges against him. Bangaru on tightrope In Delhi, the BJP's 'Muslim messiah', party president Bangaru Laxman, fought shy of responding to Bal Thackeray's demand. Laxman, who began his tenure as BJP president with a call to Muslims to join his party, said the Shiv Sena leader's call to strip them of voting rights deserved 'neither condemnation nor notice'. Laxman, hosting an iftar at the BJP headquarters, added: 'I have no comments to offer, because this is not the first time he has said such things.' BJP sources said Laxman's guarded response to Thackeray's call was a reflection of the 'nervousness' that had crept into him following Vajpayee's offensive on Ayodhya. A few things went wrong during today's iftar. Vajpayee chose to walk out of the venue at the very moment when the azan call was sounded. An honoured guest, the octogenarian Devi Lal, was ignored by the BJP's minorities morcha leaders who presented the traditional skull cap and scarf to everyone present on the dais save the tau.