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Dubbing the Gandhi-Nehru family as the “most corrupt” in the world, BJP on Thursday said it was not the birthright of its members that probe agencies cannot summon them in accordance with law if they are accused in corruption cases.

At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia launched a sharp counterattack on the Congress leadership a day after the opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of a “cowardly conspiracy” against its president Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi following the Enforcement Directorate’s summons to them for questioning in the National Herald case.

“Corrupt people will have to be scared and bow before the law,” Bhatia said and rejected the charge of political vendetta, noting that neither any high court nor the Supreme Court has ever quashed any proceedings in a case of corruption on such a ground.

In first remarks on the row over the Gyanvapi mosque, now at the centre of court room battles in Varanasi, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat Thursday questioned the need to “look for a Shivling in every mosque (har masjid me Shivling kyun dekhna)” and said the RSS was not in favour of launching any other movement (andolan) on these issues.

Addressing the concluding session of the RSS officer training camp in Nagpur, Bhagwat said the Gyanvapi dispute involves some issues of faith and the court’s decision on it should be accepted by all.

“The Gyanvapi issue is on. Gyanvapi has a history which we cannot change now. We did not create that history. Not today’s Hindus, not Muslims. It happened then. Islam came here with the invaders. In these attacks, temples were destroyed to subdue the morale of those seeking freedom for this country. There are thousands of such temples. Issues of temples, which hold special significance in the hearts of Hindus, are now being raised,” he said.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Gantz on Thursday held talks with focus on deepening military cooperation especially in the areas on research and development in future technologies and co-production of weapons and systems, the defence ministry said.

The two sides adopted the ‘India-Israel Vision on Defence Cooperation’ to further strengthen the existing framework of the bilateral defence cooperation architecture, the ministry said in a statement.

“Glad that both the countries adopted a ‘Vision Statement’ that will pave the way for defence cooperation in future. There is a broad consensus between both the countries on further strengthening the bilateral strategic and defence cooperation,” Singh wrote on Twitter.

Racing against time and being built on a war footing, the New Parliament Building is likely to be functional from November 26, sources said. The constituent assembly had adopted the Indian Constitution on November 26 in 1949.

Since the beginning of the project, the government has maintained that the winter session of Parliament in 2022 will take place in the new building, which will have more modern amenities for members and visitors. Sources said shifting the house proceedings to the New Parliament Building will be another milestone for the Narendra Modi government. Therefore, November 26 would be the ideal day to inaugurate the New Parliament Building.

At the heart of the courtroom debate over the Gyanvapi matter, the hearing of which will resume in the Varanasi District Court on July 4, is a 1942 ruling of the Allahabad High Court that dealt with the ownership of the mosque and the land surrounding it.
Both parties in the suit rely on the ruling in Din Mohammad and Others versus Secretary of State to support their claims.

The plea by five Hindu women seeking the right to worship Maa Shringar Gauri on the outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque complex claims that statements of witnesses in 1937 “prove” that Hindu idols were worshipped in the disputed premises.

The Muslim side – the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid which manages the mosque has challenged the maintainability of the suit filed by the women -- argues that the Court had declared that the land on which the mosque is built is Waqf property.