Rumblings within India's coalition government grew louder Saturday as a key political ally threatened to cut ties over a controversial plan to build a temple on the ruins of a razed mosque.
Although Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist-led coalition survived a parliamentary censure motion over the issue on Thursday, the heat generated has refused to die down.
Chief Minister of the southern Tamil Nadu state, M Karunanidhi, also the leader of the powerful DMK party, lashed out at Vajpayee for not abiding by the coalition government's common secular objective.
"The DMK will not be in the coalition if the central government goes beyond the common agenda. That is the DMK's view," Karunanidhi was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.
Vajpayee had been charged with letting his moderate, secular mask drop when he said last week that a campaign to build a temple over the ruins of a mosque was an unfinished "expression of national sentiment."
The censure motion in parliament sought the sacking of three cabinet ministers implicated in the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya by Hindu fanatics, which caused the worst sectarian riots in post-independence India.
Vajpayee had launched a strong defense of his ministerial colleagues, saying he would not allow them to resign.
In a report headlined "PM in DMK pressure cooker," The Asian Age daily said discontent was brewing even among other allies such as the TDP and JD(U) parties as they were fearful of a political backlash.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, leader of the Trinamool Congress, also rushed to her home state West Bengal to hold talks with party members on whether to continue support of the federal coalition.
Media reports said Mamata was under pressure from Trinamool members to snap ties with the coalition government to gain the support of the Muslim population in upcoming state elections in West Bengal.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, head priest of New Delhi's oldest and biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid, said Muslims were unhappy that the temple campaign had become the focus of discussion, rather than the rebuilding of the Babri mosque.
Bukhari appealed to Vajpayee's coalition partners to withdraw from the alliance in a speech made after Friday's weekly prayers -- NEW DELHI (AFP)
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