New Delhi, August 28: Law Minister Salman Khurshid, a key negotiator with Team Anna, on Sunday said there may have been “errors of judgement” in handling Mr. Hazare's fast but there were no mistakes.
“Errors of judgement have been made; errors of judgement are made whenever you are involved in a difficult situation. Errors of judgement are not mistakes”, Khurshid told a TV show.
“We made no mistakes. What we did may not have turned out to be the way it should. May be our calculation and anticipation turned out to be not what we thought it to be. But I am not prepared to admit we made mistakes,” he said.
Defending the way the government handled the Anna Hazare agitation, he said, “It is courage of conviction. It is faith in yourselves. We are not pushovers. We might have made errors of judgment. We may have lost ground somewhere but we are determined to get that ground back.”
Asked whether he is saying that the government has made no mistakes, a combative Mr. Khurshid said, “The outcome of what you did depends on how you define a mistake. A mistake is to do something that you should not be doing.”
He further said, “It is very sensitive, complex situation that has just unfolded into a good resolution.”
To repeated queries whether government committed mistakes in tackling the situation, he said, “Ask me 100 times, my answer will be the same.”
He said, “It is faith and confidence and I believe we do not want the government to be kicked around...It is the best possible resolution by Parliament.”
Khurshid said Hazare's fast will add to “our understanding and knowledge of mass movement in the 21st century“.
When told that senior Ministers P. Chidamabram and Kapil Sibal had become hate figures at Ramlila Maidan and Arvind Kejriwal even refused to speak to them, Mr. Khurshid defended his cabinet colleagues.
“They were involved at a very difficult stage. They have to take difficult calls. There was intransigence on both sides particularly on the other side.”
However, Mr. Khurshid did not agree they were withdrawn from handling the agitation. “They were never withdrawn. Nobody was withdrwan. They did what was required to do.
“You may not be popular with the crowd at a aparticular moment. I am not prepared to accept that they were discredited.”
To charges of negligence on part of the government to handle the crisis which kept the country traumatised for 13 days, Mr. Khurshid said, “It was a unique experience. I do believe it was important not just for us to act alone but to get every big political party and major political parties on board and I think this is what we achieved in the end. It is the result that matters.”
When told that majority of people believed that goverment mishandled the situation he said, “This was not a blame game or acceptance of post mortem. We are very carefully step by step trying to understand a complicated situation.”
On Anna Hazare, he said, “We have reached out to a remarkable man, remarkable movement and we want the movement to go forward and give India a much better scheme of things. We are determined it will happen.” PTI
