Indian parliament adjourned in uproar over temple project
India's parliament has adjourned in uproar as the deadline approaches for the building of a controversial temple that threatens to cause more sectarian bloodshed.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appealed for calm, but an opposition MP accused him of advocating Hindu nationalism.
S Jaipal Reddy, a leader of the main opposition Congress party, said Vajpayee's "mask" had slipped, exposing religious bias.
Most of India's 1.2 billion people are Hindus, but the constitution requires a secular government.
Members of Vajpayee's party shouted and rushed at Congress members, before the lower house of Parliament was adjourned.
Hindu hard-liners plan to hold a march and prayers there tomorrow, next to a religious site which is also claimed by Muslims.
The Supreme Court banned the ceremony, but the chairman of a trust dedicated to building a temple on the site - where a mosque was razed in 1992 by a Hindu mob - said it would go ahead regardless.
Ramchandra Das threatened massacres to rival those in neighbouring Gujarat state earlier this month if his worshippers were attacked.
The bloodshed in Gujarat that left more than 700 dead, was sparked by a petrol bomb attack on a train carrying Hindus to the site in Ayodhya.
Vajpayee supports the building of a Hindu temple on the mosque ruins. But in forming his National Democratic Alliance government in 1999, he had promised not to pursue the programme.
