India's deputy prime minister promised Monday to press ahead with hotly disputed plans to build a Hindu temple on the site of a razed Muslim mosque, saying it would be done with Muslims' consent.
Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani was speaking to about 6,000 people at an election meeting in Ayodhya, the town where Hindu fundamentalists demolished a 16th-century mosque in 1992.
``I am confident when our government will come we will start constructing the temple with consent of Muslims,''
Advani, considered a hard-liner within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, shot to political prominence after leading the march that ended with the mosque's destruction. His party won power in 1998, campaigning almost solely on the issue.
The Hindu mob claimed the mosque was built on the birthplace of their religion's supreme god, Rama. Its destruction triggered nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people. More violence followed in the state of Gujarat in 2001, when Muslims burned a train carrying Hindus.
Advani defended the push to build the temple.
``The campaign ... has been binding factor for the Hindu society,'' he said, adding that progress had been made in the past eight months in persuading Muslim leaders to agree to the proposed construction.
``There won't be any acrimony,'' Advani said. ``We will build the temple in Ayodhya.''