NEW DELHI, July 21: Opposition parties in the Indian parliament demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Monday, accusing him of protecting cabinet colleagues involved in the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque.

The parliament, which reconvened on Monday for the start of its month-long monsoon session, adjourned without transacting business as opposition MPs charged top ministers with evading justice over the destruction of the mosque.

As soon as the lower house assembled, a combined opposition, led by the Congress party, heckled the government for allegedly shielding Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani and other top leaders from prosecution.

Prosecutors had claimed that Mr Advani, Human Resource Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, former sports minister Uma Bharti, and a host of other Hindu nationalist leaders had incited a mob to demolish the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

The 16th-century mosque was destroyed in 1992 by thousands of Hindu zealots in a campaign led by Vajpayee’s ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party.

Opposition parties say the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently withdrew charges of conspiracy against Mr Advani, Mr Joshi and others at the behest of the federal government.

“The question before the house is whether the premier institutions of the country like the CBI should be allowed to be deliberately misused by the government,” said Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunshi.

“The prime minister is protecting his ministers. He is tearing the law into pieces,” added opposition member Raghuvansh Prasad Singh as proceedings degenerated into bedlam.

Mounting uproar prompted the speaker to adjourn the session two hours before lunch.

An attempt to restart business failed in the second half of the day as opposition MPs demanded Mr Vajpayee’s resignation.

“The prime minister must resign, the prime minister is misusing the CBI,” they shouted.

Law Minister Arun Jaitley later rejected the opposition charge that the CBI had been pressured by the government.

“There is no interference by the government and there is absolutely no dropping of any charge by the CBI,” Mr Jaitley told reporters, giving technical details to show that conspiracy charges against Mr Advani and others were not included in the original CBI chargesheet filed in 1993.—AFP