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Indian Parliament Adjourned Again Over Mosque Row
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian opposition MPs forced the adjournment of both houses of parliament for the fourth straight day Thursday, amid a mounting row over plans to build a Hindu temple on the ruin of a razed mosque.
Opposition MPs stormed the floors of both houses, demanding Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee apologize for his statement on Wednesday that the Hindu temple campaign was an "unfinished" national task.
The Babri Masjid in the northern town of Ayodhya was razed by thousands of Hindu fanatics on December 6, 1992, sparking widespread Hindu-Muslim riots.
Hindu right-wingers insist that the 16th century Babri Masjid had been built over an earlier temple to the Hindu god Ram and demanded that a new Ram temple be constructed on the ruins of the mosque.
As well as calling for a retraction from Vajpayee, the opposition Thursday reiterated demands for the resignation of three ministers, including Home Minister L.K. Advani, who were present in Ayodhya in 1992 and implicated in the mosque's destruction.
But Vajpayee has rejected the resignation demands as "baseless."
After both houses were adjourned, the prime minister met with the leaders of his coalition allies, some of whom had echoed the opposition's anger at his statement on the Ayodhya dispute.
The prime minister later told reporters that the partners of his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were not unhappy with his remarks on the explosive issue.
"Temple construction is not on the agenda of the NDA government," Vajpayee said, adding that the allies of his BJP party were "satisfied" with his clarification.
"They told me that they were leaving satisfied with whatever I told them. They said they had no complaints," Vajpayee said referring to the meeting of his NDA partners earlier Thursday.
Vajpayee, however, said the temple's construction could be worked out without too many problems.
"There is a feeling among all that a temple should be constructed [in Ayodhya]. But where and how it should be constructed is an important question," the prime minister said.
"Hindus and Muslims should sit together to resolve the dispute," he said, adding that there was a "feeling among some" that the Hindu temple should be built in the town of Ayodhya and an alternate site provided for a mosque.
Vajpayee insisted his coalition government did not have a "hidden agenda" for construction of the temple.
His Hindu nationalist BJP party, meanwhile, launched an attack Thursday on the opposition for disrupting parliament over the temple-mosque issue.
"The behavior of opposition was something which had not been witnessed in the last five decades of parliament," BJP spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra told a news conference
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