Salman Khurshid
From shaking up the very foundations of the Indian government to stirring up unseemly controversies, from showing incredible courage in the face of extreme adversities to losing a reputation built over years of hard work in just a blink of an eye, from setting the electoral hustings afire with golden speeches to getting into trouble for not speaking at all, there were many 'newsmakers' in 2012 who caught the common man's imagination. Some made it for stellar reasons, others for all there is wrong with the society. Here are 12 'newsmakers' that deserve a mention.
One can't but agree with the aphorism: 'It can only happen in India'. Nowhere in this world will you find that despite charges of financial bungling, a minister being elevated to a higher ministerial berth. For Salman Khurshid, his promotion as the foreign minister, from law minister, is a moment of personal triumph: a vote of confidence from the leadership when allegations of corruption were being flung at him.
But this is not the reason why he features in this list. Khurshid finds a place here for choice of words that he used to garner public sympathy for Arvind Kejriwal, who is today seen as the only saviour that our country has.
There are people who are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them, and then there is the third kind that is made great by gaffes by political luminaries. When it comes to Kejriwal, Salman Khurshid seems to have taken it on himself to make a hero out of the anti-graft activist.
First, the then law minister, Khurshid kicked up a storm when he made the 'ink and blood' statement, which was interpreted as a death threat to India Against Corruption leader Kejriwal, when the anti-graft activist wanted to stage protests in Khurshid's constituency Farrukhabad to highlight the charges financial embezzlement of over Rs 71 lakh by Khurshid's trust.
When charged with fraud, a cornered Khurshid went ahead to say: "Let him (Kejriwal) come to Farrukhabad and visit Farrukhabad. But let him also return from Farrukhabad." A statement that was entirely unbecoming of the law minister of the country. This mistake was used to the hilt by the activist to collect brownie points from the common Indian.
But this was not the end of Khurshid's follies. Not having learnt from his previous mistake, the Union minister compared Kejriwal to an ant that had pipedreams of taking on big political parties by trying to destroy them through allegations.
Since the fight for Jan Lokpal fizzled out in July, Kejriwal has been on the lookout for a comeback and to his joy, such gaffes by Khurshid have made it easier for the activist-turned-politician to create a perception that he is a hero who champions the cause of the common man.
