Former Union Minister Arif Mohammad Khan, in an exclusive interview to India TV, revealed as to who pressurised the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to change the Supreme Court verdict in the controversial Shah Bano case.
"I am constantly asked who forced Rajiv Gandhi to change the Supreme Court's verdict. There was constant pressure from Muslim Personal Law Board as well as several big shot ministers of the party including Narasimha Rao, Arjun Singh, and Narayan Dutt," Khan said during his interview with India TV's Hussain Rizvi.
Replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President's address on Tuesday, PM Modi quoted a former minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government as saying in an interview that its leaders claimed that it was not the duty of their party to uplift Muslims and if "they want to lie in gutter, let them be."
Modi made these remarks while referring to the bill passed by the then Congress government to reverse the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case.
Khan was a Minister of State in the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 but resigned over the government's stand in the Shah Bano case.
During the conversation, Arif Khan also claimed that Congress leaders those days used to say that they were politicians and not social activists, and that they didn't want to upset Muslims who they considered their votebank.
Back then the Muslim Personal Law Board had said that Muslims MPs who are speaking against them should be thrashed, Arif Mohammad Khan claimed, adding that Muslims were attacked thrice then.
Watch this exclusive interview of Arif Mohammed Khan :
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