Lucknow, Feb 3 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Saturday said Hindu prayers in a cellar of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi Masjid were stopped in 1993 by then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav as part of “a conspiracy”.
The prayers at “Vyas ji ka tehkhana” — the cellar where the Vyas family used to conduct puja — resumed this week following the Varanasi district court’s order.
Shailendra Kumar Pathak, who had petitioned the Varanasi district court seeking the right to worship there, had claimed that his grandfather, Somnath Vyas, offered puja there up to December 1993, when it was stopped by the administration.
Addressing an event here, the deputy chief minister said the way the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government stopped worship in the cellar “as part of a conspiracy” was criticised not only in Varanasi but across the country. Yadav, who founded the Samajwadi Party, died in 2022.
“Our government was formed in 2017 and we could have started the puja but we did not. Devotees of Lord Shiva also showed restraint, went to court, got orders from there and started worship. Due to this, not only us but all the people of the world who believe in Sanatan Dharma are equally happy,” Maurya, a senior BJP leader, said, according to a statement issued by the organisers of the event.
Referring to the consecration ceremony at the Ayodhya Ram temple, Maurya said it was a matter of pride for all.
“On January 22, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi consecrated the idol of Lord Ram in the grand temple in Ayodhya, I was heartened to know that the movement for which lakhs of Kar sevaks had pledged to sacrifice everything and hundreds of people sacrificed their lives has become successful,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Varanasi district court allowing the resumption of Hindu prayers in the southern cellar of Gyanvapi Masjid, in a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
The Gyanvapi Masjid committee has challenged the district court order in the Allahabad High Court, which will hear the matter on February 6. PTI CDN SMN
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