NEW DELHI -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Monday promised to take steps to curb sectarian riots in the Western state of Gujarat, but rejected opposition demands to sack the province's chief minister, AFP reported.

Addressing lawmakers in the Upper House of Parliament, Vajpayee said his government would implement an opposition-sponsored motion seeking federal intervention in Gujarat to quell the riots that have claimed more than 900 lives since late February.

"There need be no doubt about it," Vajpayee said, while ruling out the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has been accused of failing to prevent the sectarian violence. The issue of a change of leadership in Gujarat was considered by the government, but later deemed inappropriate as it would have further worsened the situation in the state, he said. Muslims have been the main victims of the Gujarat riots that followed a February 27 attack on train carrying Hindu activists that left 58 dead. Vajpayee's remarks in Parliament came after his statement over the weekend that there was no need to slap an official notice on the Gujarat Administration if it did not deviate from federal instructions on maintaining law and order in the troubled state.

India's opposition, led by the Congress Party, immediately accused the government of double-speak, saying that Vajpayee had agreed with the wording of the censure motion that sought federal intervention in Gujarat.

The Upper House was expected to vote on the motion later Monday.

"We are mobilizing all our members," Congress spokesman S. Jaipal Reddy said.

"We are confident of getting the motion carried either by majority if necessary and unanimously if the government agrees," he added.

The Vajpayee government does not command a majority in the Upper House though it had defeated a similar motion by 94 votes last week in the elected Lower House, where it outnumbers the opposition.

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