The rightwing Hindu Shiv Sena (Shivaji's Army) said it would march on parliament Monday, the anniversary of the razing of the ancient mosque by Hindu zealots in the northern town of Ayodhya in 1992.

The Shiv Sena is a partner in the coalition led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party.

"The BJP has reached the present position by riding the Rama wave and if it does not fulfil its promise to construct the temple, it has no right to be in the government," Sena's northern Indian chief, Jai Bhagwan, said.

Hindu zealots razed the Babri mosque believing it was built by Moghul emperor Babar in the 16th century on the ruins of a temple of Hindu mythological warrior king Rama.

The BJP then rode an emotive campaign but after forming its second coalition government in two years it put the issue on the backburner.

Bhagwan warned the number of BJP members in parliament would shrink from the current 182 if it reneged the pledge.

"The BJP will revert back to its earlier position of having just two MPs," Bhagwan said of the party's original strength in the 545-seat parliament in 1982.

The state government of Uttar Pradesh, where Ayodhya is located, meanwhile, said it would prevent Hindu radicals from creating trouble on the anniversary of the mosque's demolition.

"The state government is committed to ensure that communal harmony is not disturbed on that day," said Ram Prakash Gupta, chief minister of BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

"No one will be allowed to start new traditions," he said in a thinly veiled threat to radical Hindus who have been campaigning to offer prayers in the barricaded mosque site in Ayodhya.

The razing of the Islamic shrine triggered India's worst sectarian riots since independence in 1947 and left more than 2,000 people dead, most of them Muslims.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Forum, VHP) meanwhile, said it would organize a "Victory Day" in Ayodhya to celebrate the sacking.

"The event in 1992 was a symbol of Hindu assertion in a nation where Hindus are in majority and thus it is our duty to celebrate the day as Victory Day," a VHP spokesman said.

A Muslim organization, which has been at the forefront of a campaign for rebuilding the Babri mosque, on Saturday said it would join rallies and marches on December 6 to protest the demolition.

"No procession or rally would be taken out and every effort made to observe the day in a peaceful manner," Zafaryab Jilani, the organization's chief, said in the state capital of Lucknow.

The Press Trust of India, meanwhile, said police in the southern city of Coimbatore have intensified security ahead of the anniversary.

The news agency said 3,500 troopers would guard the city to avert possible Hindu-Muslim rioting on December 6.

It said similar precautions were being taken in other southern Indian cities and on state-run trains.

Coimbatore was the site of a string of bomb blasts in February ahead of a rally by India's BJP Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Dozens died in the attack, which were blamed on opposed to the mosque's demolition.

Muslims, numbering around 125 million, are India's largest religious minority.

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