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The Allahabad High Court on Friday rejected the plea of the Masjid Intezamia Committee of Gyanvapi mosque to stay the order of the Varanasi district court that permitted the Hindu side to perform puja in the southern cellar of the mosque. The High Court gave time to the committee till February 6 to amend its appeal and challenge the earlier order of January 17, 2024, by which the District Magistrate of Varanasi was appointed as the receiver of the Gyanvapi premises. The next hearing of the case will be on February 6.

The bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Aggarwal observed that the committee should first question the validity of the January 17 order, following which the DM took possession of the Gyanvapi premises on January 23 and allowed the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust to conduct puja in the basement through a priest by an interim order dated January 31.

The BJP said on Friday that Congress leader D K Suresh has no right to remain an MP even for a minute, as it accused him of openly talking of breaking India, violating his oath of protecting the country's unity and sovereignty.

"Will the country's unity and sovereignty be torn into shreds for political benefits?" BJP leader and former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference, as he hit out at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi besides their India bloc allies for maintaining a "conspicuous silence" over his "shameful" and "unconstitutional" comments.

The MLAs of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led coalition could not fly out of Ranchi on Thursday owing to bad weather. They waited for a day as Champai Soren took the oath as the chief minister on Friday and then flew to Hyderabad. On Friday evening, the MLAs reached Hyderabad, the capital of the Congress-ruled Telangana -- being considered a haven for the MLAs now. A senior coalition leader said though Champai Soren has taken the oath as the chief minister, he will have to prove majority in the floor test. "We can’t take any chance during the period as the BJP might try to contact our MLAs,” the senior leader said as quoted by news agency PTI.

The Jharkhand Governor CP Radhakrishnan has invited the Leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) legislative party, Champai Soren to form the government in Jharkhand. The invite came shortly after 43 MLAs belonging to the JMM-led coalition found themselves unable to depart for Hyderabad due to adverse weather conditions. The situation unfolded as all flights from Ranchi's Birsa Munda Airport were cancelled, leaving the 43 MLAs stranded in Jharkhand.

The MLAs, part of the JMM-led alliance in Jharkhand, had scheduled their journey to Hyderabad amid poaching fears from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), amidst a political stalemate in the state as a meeting between Champai Soren and the Governor at Raj Bhavan in Ranchi earlier on Thursday proved unfruitful.

A section of people from the Muslim community on Thursday staged a protest against the Varanasi court's order allowing puja inside Gyanvapi Mosque complex's 'Vyas Tehkhana'. The Muslim community protested after offering prayers at the Gyanvapi mosque. The protestorers while talking to reporters claimed that "there is no evidence that a that the Vyas family held any land inside the mosque complex."  

Earlier today, the Masjid Intezamia Committee of Gyanvapi mosque of Varanasi filed a revision petition in Allahabad High Court against Varanasi District Court's order allowing Hindus to perform prayers inside the southern celler of Gyanvapi mosque.