Uproar in parliament as opposition demands Vajpayee's resignation

Parliament, which reconvened Monday for the start of its month-long monsoon session, adjourned without transacting business as opposition MPs charged top ministers with evading justice over the destruction of the Babri Mosque.

As soon as parliament's lower house assembled, a combined opposition led by the main Congress party heckled the government for allegedly shielding Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani and other top leaders from prosecution.

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Prosecutors had claimed that Advani, Human Resource Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, former sports minister Uma Bharti and a host of other Hindu nationalist leaders had incited a mob to demolish the Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya.

The 16th-century mosque was destroyed by thousands of Hindu zealots in a campaign led by Vajpayee's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party.

Rightwing Hindus believe the mosque was built on the site by Mughul emperor Babur after he oversaw the destruction of a temple to the Hindu god Ram.

The zealots said they were merely reclaiming the land so as to rebuild a temple.

Opposition parties say the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the case recently withdrew charges of conspiracy against Advani, Joshi and others at the behest of the federal government.

"The question before the house is whether the premier institutions of the country like the CBI should be allowed to be deliberately misused by the government," said Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunshi.

"The prime minister is protecting his ministers. He is tearing the law into pieces," added opposition member Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, as proceedings degenerated into bedlam.

Mounting uproar prompted the speaker to adjourn the session two hours before lunch.

An attempt to re-start business failed in the second half of the day as opposition MPs demanded Vajpayee's resignation.

"The prime minister must resign, the prime minister is misusing the CBI," they shouted.

Parliament's nominated upper house also adjourned for the day but in a gesture of homage to two parliamentarians who died when the bicameral house was not in session.

Vajpayee was slated to offer a detailed report Monday of his historic trip to China last month and on his talks with European leaders in Russia, Germany and France but in the din he gave up.

The Ayodhya imbroglio has almost always dogged parliamentary proceedings in India since the mosque was demolished in 1992.

The monsoon session is slated to endorse 16 key bills into law including historic legislation that would make free education a fundamental right of children aged between six and 16 years.