LUCKNOW, Feb 16: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Saturday it was now up to the courts to resolve a dispute over the construction of a temple on the ruins of the Babri mosque.

Vajpayee acknowledged failure in his mediation efforts over the explosive row, which sparked some of India’s worst communal violence 10 years ago.

“The attempts made have not succeeded,” Vajpayee said at a news conference in his home constituency of Lucknow.

“Both sides adopted a rigid stand. Now only the court can decide,” he said.

Hindu zealots tore down the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh state, in 1992.

The destruction led to Hindu-Muslim violence across India in which some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

The disputed site is currently under the protection of the courts.

Several cabinet members of Vajpayee’s Hindu-nationalist government, including Home Minister L.K. Advani, still face charges over their alleged role in inciting mobs to pull down the mosque.

In a meeting last month with Hindu monks from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council), Vajpayee agreed only to ask the federal law ministry to look into their demands.

Asked if he had gone any further in proposing a solution to Hindu and Muslim community leaders during his mediation talks, Vajpayee said: “No, the talks did not reach that stage.”

VHP leaders said on Saturday they were surprised by the prime minister’s comments about the mediation talks and the intransigence of each side.

“I have no knowledge about how and where the mediation talks could be said to have failed,” VHP’s president Ashok Singhal told the organization’s mouthpiece, the Samvad Bharati website.

Singhal said the court did not have the legal right to challenge their plan to build the temple as it was on an “undisputed portion” of land which the VHP claims to have leagl ownership of.

On the eve of crucial polls in Uttar Pradesh, VHP hardliners said this week that they would go ahead with their plans to construct a temple from March 15.

Senior VHP leader Giriraj Kishore criticized Vajpayee and said: “We announced the date for our construction plans a year ago and we are sticking to it. How are we being stubborn?”

The VHP has close links to Vajpayee’s BJP.

The prime minister said he could not promise a breakthrough in the dispute before March 15.

“Let the deadline come,” he said.

The Congress Party termed the verbal exchanges between the BJP and VHP akin to a “friendly” sparring match aimed at generating votes in the UP elections.

All India Congress Committee’s general secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad, accused Vajpayee of duplicity.

“On one hand, he told VHP to go ahead with the temple construction, while on the other he assures federal coalition partners that he would not allow the construction,” he told Aaj Tak television channel.

He said the two organizations were so closely linked that it was difficult to distinguish them as two different entities.—AFP