BJP won't 'sacrifice' govt for Ayodhya temple: Advani

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), a hardline movement with close links to the BJP, has repeatedly demanded that the government pass a law to enable the construction of a temple in the northern city of Ayodhya.

But Advani said the government was "not ready to bring a legislation to create a division" in parliament.

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The "VHP wants us to bring... a legislation which will definitely not get passed in parliament," Advani was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.

"It (the VHP) wants us to contest elections on this plank. We are not ready to sacrifice the government," Advani told reporters en route to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

Hindu zealots in 1992 tore down Ayodhya's Babri mosque, which they say was built over a temple marking the god Ram's birthplace, setting off India's worst Hindu-Muslim riots since independence in 1947 that left more than 2,000 dead.

The temple-building campaign was championed by the then-opposition BJP and Advani still faces court charges for an alleged role in the mosque's destruction.

But the BJP has sought to distance itself from the temple movement since coming to power in 1998. Even though it has enough support to push most laws through parliament, the BJP is aware it could lose some of its two dozen coalition partners if it is viewed as taking an aggressively "anti-Muslim" stance.

The dispute over the Babri mosque site is now before the courts.

Advani said a "real solution" to the row "lies in an agreement between the two communities (Muslims and Hindus), and I am optimistic that it is going to come."

He said the government would bring legislation on a temple "only in case of consensus not only within the NDA (National Democratic Alliance coalition) but also the opposition."