Law Minister Salman Khurshid, a key negotiator with Team Anna, on Sunday said there may have been “errors of judgement” in handling Hazare’s fast, but there were no mistakes.
“Errors of judgement have been made, they are made whenever you are involved in a difficult situation. However, these are not mistakes”, Khurshid told CNN-IBN in an interview with Karan Thapar.
“We made no mistakes. What we did may not have turned out the way it should have . It is possible our calculation and anticipation did not turn out to be 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 agitation, he said, “It is the courage of conviction. It is having 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 it back.”
Asked whether he was saying the government had made no mistakes, a combative Khurshid said, “The outcome of what you do depends on how you define a mistake. A mistake is to do something you should not be doing.”
He further added, “It is a very sensitive, complex situation that has just unfolded into a good resolution.”
To repeated queries if the 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.”
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Khurshid said Hazare’s fast would 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 that Arvind Kejriwal had even refused to speak to them, 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However, Khurshid did not agree they were withdrawn from handling the agitation. “They were never withdrawn. Nobody was withdrawn. They did what was required to do. You may not be popular with the crowd at a particular moment. I am not prepared to accept they were discredited.”