NEW DELHI, 15 April — After a day of suspense and an appeal from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ruling coalition, a key ally yesterday backed down on threats to withdraw support over the country’s worst Hindu-Muslim clashes in a decade.

But the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which provides the federal coalition 28 deputies in a 545-member parliament, said it would still push for Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party to sack Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has presided over the killings of over 800 Muslims in the state.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance earlier pleaded with the party to stay in the coalition and said it was “committed to its secular agenda.”

All except three allies put up a show of strength for Vajpayee at a meeting at his residence, supporting the BJP’s rejection of calls to sack Modi. The allies agreed with the BJP’s contention that the prerogative to change leadership of a state government lay with the party’s unit in that state and not with the federal coalition or its government in New Delhi.

While backing Vajpayee, the alliance distanced itself from the Telugu Desam Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) that have demanded Modi’s dismissal and stayed away from the meeting.

“The NDA appeals to the TDP to continue its support to the government,” alliance spokesman George Fernandes said in a statement after the meeting. “The NDA is committed to its secular agenda from which there is no deviation nor shall any be permitted.”

The allies are furious over the fact that the BJP has protected Modi instead of sacking him and ordered an early state election. That decision provoked howls of protest from rivals and allies alike, who said it was a cynical exercise to win votes in Gujarat by cashing in on simmering Hindu anger there.

Earlier, Vajpayee insisted the coalition would hold and said he was prepared to test his rule on the floor of Parliament, which reconvenes this week. “If necessary, we are ready to prove our majority in Parliament,” he told reporters in the beachside town of Miramar, where top BJP officials wound up three days of talks to deal with the crisis and draft a strategy to reverse political setbacks. “There is no instability,” the prime minister said.

With national elections not due until 2004 and little likelihood of teaming up with the main opposition Congress party, quitting the coalition would be the TDP’s last resort, given the damage to its image that would come from toppling the government.

But the threat of losing the TDP’s 28 seats would bring the coalition dangerously near the 272 seats it needs to rule and give the TDP some leverage — such as more money for its heartland of Andhra Pradesh state.

With India’s fluid alliances and talks going on with other parties, BJP officials at the meeting in Miramar were confident even a TDP walkout would not bring down the government, although it could hurt its credibility. “But the numbers will still be with us,” said one.

The BJP, which swept from obscurity to power on a wave of Hindu revivalism, has alienated its core constituency by taming its policies at the behest of its secular coalition allies. Particularly galling to its hard-line backers is the BJP’s decision to abandon support for plans to build a temple on the site of the destroyed Babri Mosque in northern Uttar Pradesh state. One of Vajpayee’s most serious political setbacks was getting drubbed in a recent election in Uttar Pradesh — the BJP’s heartland and India’s largest state.

Analysts say the BJP’s decision to go to the polls in Gujarat could signal a shift to the right to regain Hindu support. “Though the huge pro-BJP sentiment that was evident soon after the violence began is missing now, the Hindu card is certainly going to yield them benefits,” Gujarat Institute of Development Studies director Sudershan Iyengar said.

“It’s a gamble or a calculated risk being taken by the BJP in Gujarat. If it proves successful, they may like to experiment it at the national level,” Iyengar said.