Cong rules out PM's apology, slams BJP for distorting

New Delhi, Dec 11: The Congress today rejected the demand by the BJP that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh aplogise for stating that the minorities, including Muslims, have the first claim to country's resources, saying the statement had been ''distorted out of context.''

''It is mischievous on the part of the BJP to have presented a distorted version of the PM's statement, made at a meeting of the National Development Council, and propagated the half-truth,''Congress spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi said at press conference, adding that it showed the Opposition party's 'anti-Muslim and sick mind set.''

Terming the move a ''deliberate attempt made mischievously and irresponsibly to mislead the people,'' he clarified that the Congress had always been committed to the uplift of backward classes, without discrimination on grounds of religion. ''What the Prime Minister had stated was consistent with the Congress' stand, but only a portion of it was presented by the BJP out of context,'' he said.

The Congress spokesman said that the Prime Minister's statement included the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, backward classes, women, children and all the underprivileged in its ambit and the word minorities did not include merely Muslims.

''If the Prime Minister had stated that the welfare of the backward among the Muslims should be taken care of, what was wrong in that,'' Mr Chaturvedi queried, adding the BJP had played a ''fraud'' on the people by 'misrepresenting' the facts.

UNI

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