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BJP president J P Nadda on Saturday nominated 10 party leaders, including many former state unit chiefs, to the organisation's national executive.

A party statement said the new national executive members are Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Deepak Prakash, Satish Punia and Sanjay Jaiswal, former BJP presidents in Telangana, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Bihar, respectively.

Suresh Kashyap, Vishnudeo Sai and Ashwani Sharma, who headed the party in Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Punjab, respectively, before being replaced by the incumbents, are among the other appointees.

A CBI court on Friday granted five days' remand to 3 arrested Railway employees, arrested in connection with the probe into the Blasore triple-train accident, for further interrogation. The CBI had demanded seven days' remand of the trio for further investigation but the court granted only five days. Earlier, on Friday, the premier central investigating agency arrested senior section engineer Arun Kumar Mohanta, section engineer Mohammad Amir Khan and technician Pappu Kumar under sections 304 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 153 of Railways Act, 1989.

The triple-train accident on June 2 involved the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express, the Howrah-bound Shalimar Express, and a goods train. The accident claimed the lives of 291 people and left over a 1,000 passengers injured.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi suffered a setback as the Gujarat high court on Friday refused to stay his conviction by a sessions court in Surat in the defamation case filed against him over his "Modi surname" remark made during a political rally in Karnataka in 2019.

Rejecting Gandhi's plea for a stay, Justice H M Prachchhak noted various criminal defamation cases pending against Gandhi.

"As many as 10 criminal cases are pending against the applicant. It is now the need of the hour to have purity in politics. Representatives of the people should be men of clear antecedents," the judge observed.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday claimed that 17-18 MLAs from the rival Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde were in touch with his party since NCP leader Ajit Pawar joined the state government.

Sena minister Uday Samant countered him by claiming that six of 13 MLAs from the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction were in touch with him.

“Since Ajit Pawar and other NCP leaders joined the government, 17-18 MLAs from the Shinde camp have contacted us,” Raut claimed, talking to reporters here.

Heavy rains have led to a red alert being issued in Kerala’s Idukki, as well as in Raigad district in Maharashtra, while flash floods was reported in Himachal Pradesh’s Una district on Wednesday and deaths due to wall collapse in Gujarat’s Rajkot.

The IMD uses four colour codes for weather warnings green (no action needed), yellow (watch and stay updated), orange (be prepared) and red (take action).

Continuous heavy rainfall in Kerala since the night of July 4 has severely disrupted normal life leading to flooded roads, rising water levels in rivers and dams, homes damaged due to uprooted trees, and displaced many in coastal areas.