Minister warns Hindu hardliners on temple

India's ruling alliance warned Hindu hardliners yesterday that the government would act against anyone breaking the law after they set a deadline to build a controversial temple where a 16th century mosque once stood.

But the opposition Congress party accused the alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of hypocrisy, saying the deadline was set by groups close to the BJP to drum up support for provincial elections later this year.

Hindu hardline groups, meeting on the fringe of the Maha Kumbh Mela on Saturday, gave the authorities until March 12, 2002 to remove obstacles to the construction of the temple in Ayodhya town.

If nothing was done, the hardliners, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), said they would go ahead with the construction anyway, disregarding a court hearing into the matter. Rural Development Minister and senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu, quoted by state-run All India Radio and Press Trust of India (PTI), said that the law would be upheld.

"If anyone violates the law, it will take its own course," he said. More than 3,000 people were killed in religious riots involving Hindus and Muslims after zealots seeking a temple at Ayodhya razed the 16th century Babri mosque in 1992, violating court orders.

Both BJP and VHP are offshoots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or the National Volunteers Corps, which is a close-knit Hindu body that serves as the ideological fountainhead for many religious, social and political groups.

Naidu, whose party wants the temple, reiterated that the issue was not part of the agenda of the coalition. The Congress party questioned the sincerity of such talk. "The religious and political agenda are rolled into one for the Sangh parivar (RSS family)," Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said. "The timing is significant though they may deny any linkage.

"They have mastered the art of not just double-speak, but multiple speak," Sharma told Reuters. VHP convened the meeting of the "Dharam Sansad", or religious parliament of saints at Allahabad, at the confluence of Ganges and Yamuna rivers, on the margins of the 42-day Maha Kumbh Mela.

A resolution by the "Dharam Sansad" on the second day of a three-day meeting set the deadline for the temple to coincide with the Hindu festival of Mahashivratri next year. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose BJP is considered close to the VHP, stirred controversy last December by saying that the temple reflected a national aspiration.