BeyondHeadlines Staff Reporter
New Delhi: As anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare ended his fast on the 13th day, Law Minister Salman Khurshid put up a brave face and defended government’s handling of the Jan Lokpal impasse.
Khurshid argued that some colleagues and the government might have committed “errors of judgement,” but that would not amount to “mistakes.”
Speaking to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN Khursid said, “…we made no mistakes. What we did may not have turned out to be as it would, maybe our anticipation and calculation turned out to be not what we thought it would be, but I’m not prepared to admit that we made mistakes.”
He further added, “Errors of judgement are made whenever you are involved in a difficult situation. But errors of judgment are not mistakes.”
He also shunned away the argument in the media that he and Pranab Mukharjee were given the command as Home Minister P Chidambaram and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal had messed up the whole thing. Khurshid said, “They remained there constantly, they did what they were required to do and they helped us all the way.”
He said that he was ready to take responsibility, but there was no question of anybody resigning.
Khurshid, Sandeep Dikshit and Vilasrao Deshmukh had emerged as the trouble shooter after Sibal was found to be unpopular in the Anna camp and due to Home Ministry’s inapt handling of the even unfolding on August 16.
But Khurshid was defiant as he said, “You may be popular or unpopular with the crowd on a particular moment for a particular event, but I’m not prepared to accept that they are discredited.”
He also defended the prime minister whom many blame of not being in control: “the Prime Minister just sat there almost as though he was in a control room monitoring every step that we took and every word that we spoke.”
The minister spoke openly about all issues and defended Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari, who too had earned ire of the Anna camp for calling the crusader “corrupt from head to toe.”
Khurshid said, “It was a position that a young man took upset by the fact that the Prime Minister had been sent a very distressing message. He took that position but he did realise that it was a tougher position to take.”
He also blamed the media for multiplying the whole stalemate manifold. He accused the media of partnering with the movement led by Team Anna. “The world doesn’t end with the media box. The world is much larger,” Khursid said.
He also denied that the argument that the Congress led government has lost the faith of the nation as the media seems to portray. Khurshid briskly said, “But, we’re not folding up and going away, not because you think so, we’re here and we will be here.”
He further added, “We might have made errors of judgement, and as I said we may have lost ground somewhere, but we are determined to get that ground back.”
