A surprise visitor to Parliament on Monday was former union minister Arif Mohammad Khan, who was spotted in its busy corridors. Mr Khan left the Congress in the late 1980s, along with the late Vishwanath Pratap Singh -- who became Prime Minister of the National Front government in 1989. Subsequently, he joined the BJP, but has been inactive politically for some years.
So speculation was rife on Monday whether Mr Khan, a powerful speaker who had clashed with the Rajiv Gandhi government when it overturned the Shah Bano judgment, bowing to the conservatives in the Muslim community, would be back in the BJP: for though the party has a Muslim minister in Najma Heptullah, it does not have a really strong personality from the community.
