"It seems those who were skeptical about us holding these talks have been proved right," said Mr Khursheed this morning to NDTV. "I'm willing to have talks with them. If they don't want it, why should they blame anyone else?" he asked.
74-year-old Anna is on the tenth day of his hunger strike against corruption. Doctors are worried about his health. The government has prepared an emergency evacuation plan for the activist, but say they will enforce this only upon the advice of Anna's doctors who are checking him every two hours.
Last night, Mr Khursheed said the talks with Prashant Bhushan Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi were "courteous and civil." Team Anna did not offer this optimistic spin. They accused the government of retracting promises made in their first set of talks on Wednesday night - at that time, the activists said, the ministers appeared willing to meet them halfway. That cooperative spirit had evaporated by last night, according to Team Anna; its members were critical of the language and tone of the two ministers.
Mr Kejriwal said "We are victims of Congress politics." He said the ministers last night informed him that there's a divide within the Congress over whether to engage with the activists. Mr Kejriwal blamed senior ministers P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal for suggesting to the government that negotiations with Team Anna are not merited. Mr Khursheed did not deny this. "My cabinet colleagues did not want me to hold talks. They were probably right. We hold talks and it leads to this," he said with some measure of bitterness.
The government and Anna are battling over whose legislation on a new important bill to tackle corruption should be considered by Parliament. The Lokpal Bill creates a new independent agency (Lokpal) to investigate charges of corruption among public servants. The government's version has been introduced in Parliament; it is designed to under-achieve, says Team Anna. The activists have drafted their own version which they refer to as the Jan Lokpal Bill or People's Lokpal Bill. Team Anna wants the government to withdraw the Lokpal Bill and put the Jan Lokpal Bill to debate in Parliament. The government says that's not possible because it violates parliamentary processes. So it has offered to send the Jan Lokpal Bill to the same parliamentary committee that's received the government's Lokpal Bill.
At a meeting attended by the leaders of all political parties last evening, the Left and the BJP agreed that the government should bench its version of the bill and introduce a new draft that incorporates features from Anna's version as well as suggestions by other civil rights activists like Aruna Roy. However, different parties also emphasized that while it is critical to reach a truce so that Anna ends his fast, the government should ensure that parliamentary procedure is not subverted. This direction from the Opposition may have emboldened the government to take a firmer stand with Team Anna at last night's meeting.
What Team Anna wants is for their version to be introduced in Parliament within four days; and then put to vote and passed (with amendments, if needed) before this Parliament session concludes on September 8. Mr Khursheed denied that this had earlier been considered by the government. "Did we earlier say we would hand over Parliament to them and later we said no?" he asked.
