JOIN US''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 CNN-IBN in an interview with Karan Thapar.
"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 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 sensistive, 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 belive 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, 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However, Khurshid did not agree they were withdrawn from handling the agitation. "They were never withdrawn.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 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, 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."
Not agreeing with Thapar that many are questioning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's leadership and he is losing the respectability he had in 2009, Law Minister said, "Every step was led by him and every decision was led by him."
"For four days Prime Minister sat there almost like he was in a control room monitoring every step we took and every word we spoke and I am sorry if someone thinks that PM was not in control then they do not understand what happened," he said, asserting there has been no damage to the PM's image.
"The space has been taken by contending people we will need to get that space back. It happens in a democracy when ocean opens it splits to give path that happened for Moses. We are not Moses we are not against Gandhi either. Gandhi is on our side."
He said "Bottomline is that whenever these kind of things happen there are give and takes. There are improvement and falling in popularity stakes. We know what we doing we know what where are we going."
Asked why no preventive step was taken as the issue was boiling since April, Khurshid said, "Of course prevention is better than cure but you cannot always prevent, sometimes you have to cure."
To a question whether Manish Tewari did not commit gaffe he said, "Manish has drawn a line. I am not blaming him. It was a position that a young man took, upset by the fact that the PM had been sent a very distressing missive. He took that position but he did realise that this was too tough a position."
On Delhi Police's role, Khurshid said they handled the situation in a "remarkable" way.
However, being critical of the media's role he said, "World does not end with media box. World does not end with Anna Hazare. World is much larger... world certainly does not start and end with Anna Hazare. Anna Hazare is an important icon to whom our PM not only has saluted but paid tribute. We are pleased and happy that he is in hospital."
He further said, "We are not folding up and going away. We will leave it to the people to decide what role media play."
On Anna being sent to jail ahead of his fast, he said, he was sent by order of the Magistrate and the government cannot question a judge.
Pointing out the positive aspects, Khurshid said "Everything that happened is not negative, some positive things too have happened. We have gained something after those positive things. They will add to our understanding of a mass movement in the 21st century."
Asked whether he would resign owning up responsibility for the protracted stir that caused trauma to the country, khurshid said, "I am not offerring resignation. I am taking responsibility. This is a problem and government does not decide on a TV channel."
"You should not decide for the government how it should function. You can advise, comment but please do not tell us how government should function.," he told Thapar.