NEW DELHI, Jan 29: Hindu hardliners on Tuesday ruled out further talks with the Indian government on whether to build a temple on the site of the Babri mosque and suggested they would start construction in mid-March.

Pravin Togadia, secretary general of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), said the group would construct the temple in Ayodhya on the ruins of the 16th-century mosque.

“We have set a deadline of March 12. The government has to decide whether it is with jihadis and terrorists or with the Hindu majority and Lord Ram,” Togadia told reporters in New Delhi.

“The saints are not coming to Delhi again for talks,” he said.

A delegation of hardline Hindu holy men met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Sunday to ask that the land around the temple, held under court protection, be turned over for the construction of the temple.

But Vajpayee assured them only that he was taking steps to resolve the dispute and said the government would refer the matter to the law ministry.

The delegation from the VHP, which has close links with Vajpayee’s BJP, said it hoped a 25-hectare area around the razed mosque which it said is “undisputed” would be turned over for temple construction.

Tagodia called the referral of the dispute to the law ministry “a positive step by the government, but there is no question of giving any more time than March 12.”—AFP