NEW DELHI: A mediaeval mosque demolished by Hindu fundamentalists 10 years ago now haunts the pro-Hindu, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and threatens to destabilize the 21-party coalition it leads.

Vajpayee has failed to encourage an out-of-court settlement of a dispute over ownership of the piece of land on which the 16th century Babri Mosque stands at Ayodhya town in northern Uttar Pradesh state. This site is where Hindu fundamentalists plan to begin temple construction work on Friday.

On Sunday, Muslim leaders informed him that they preferred to wait for a court settlement of the dispute and urged him to ensure that a status quo ordered by the court be maintained.

With pressure from key allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) adding to that from Opposition parties, Vajpayee assured Parliament on Monday that he would prevent fundamentalist Hindus from holding ceremonial rites - which mark the beginning of construction activity — until a court ruling is handed down.

Several regional parties have openly expressed dismay at the Gujarat riots in recent weeks and the plan of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum, which is leading the campaign to erect the temple on the disputed site and is closely linked to the BJP, to go ahead with its temple-building agenda.

These parties include the Telugu Desam party, which rules southern Andhra Pradesh state and the Biju Janata Dal party that rules eastern Orissa state

TDP leader in Parliament Yerran Naidu said there should be no “ambiguity” on the part of the government on the temple-building issue.

Mamta Banerjee, leader of the Trinamul (grassroots) Congress party, another key ally of the BJP or Indian People’s Party, said: “The status quo should be maintained and the Prime Minister should take strong action against religious organisations.”

“The government is determined to keep peace,” a grim-faced Vajpayee assured Parliament. Earlier, he declared a matter of national shame the communal riots in late February sparked by the issue in western Gujarat state, in which more than a thousand people died.

Vajpayee is now under pressure in Parliament to dismiss the BJP chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who failed to check the attacks on Muslims and even justified it as a natural reaction to the attack on the train which left 52 passengers dead.

Opposition leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, who leads the powerful regional Samajwadi (socialist) Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh state, have also demanded action against the World Hindu Forum.

“We are demanding action against VHP leaders, the dispersal of the huge mobs that they are gathering in Ayodhya and the handing over of the town to the army,” Singh, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said. He also charged the Vajpayee government secretly colluding with the VHP.

Singh described the situation at Ayodhya as “explosive” especially because the government had succumbed to pressure from the VHP to lo lift restrictions that checked the group’s volunteers from streaming into the town ahead of the Mar 15 deadline, when construction is due to begin.

In 1992, VHP volunteers violated court orders to storm the tri-domed Babri Masjid and raze it to the ground, triggering communal violence across the country. More than 3, 000 people, mostly Muslims, died in that round of violence.

Vajpayee’s troubles with his allies and the opposition are compounded by the fact that he has ordered the army to the border with Pakistan and insisted that he would not withdraw it until he was certain that the neighbouring country has stopped supporting militancy in Kashmir.

Opposition leaders have accused Vajpayee of making the military feint against Pakistan to bolster the electoral fortunes for the BJP in provincial elections held in four states in February, including Uttar Pradesh.

But the BJP lost the states of northern Punjab and Uttaranchal and north-eastern Manipur to the powerful opposition Congress party. It also slipped down to being the third largest party in Uttar Pradesh, where a new government is yet to be formed because of a hung verdict.

The Congress party has been the most bitter critic of Vajpayee’s seeming prevarication on the temple-building issue and of the way the BJP provincial government in Gujarat has handled the communal riots.

“It is a bad omen for the country when groups like the VHP, which is closely linked to the BJP, openly declare that they will go ahead and build the temple no matter what the court or the government decides,” said Aswhwini Kumar, spokesman for the Congress party and a member of Parliament. —Dawn/The InterPress News Service.