Aruna Roy denies remarks about differences between PM, Sonia

Patna, June 3: Social activist and former National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy on June 2 denied having spoken anything about the differences between the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and blamed a section of media for twisting her remarks.

"I had not spoken anything like that (differences between the PM and Sonia)...I had merely said that there were two views (in the UPA government and the NAC) of which one talked about growth and market-related things and another view supporting social sector," she said at a lecture on the topic 'The Challenges of Transparency and Accountability in Indian Democracy'.

"My remarks were twisted by a section of media," Roy said, explaining her remarks before deciding to walk out of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi headed NAC of which she was a member for couple of years where she had played key role in drafting proposals for boosting the government's responsibilities towards the social sector.

The former NAC member, who had played an instrumental role in enactment of the Right to Information Act (RTI) with some other social activists in the past decade, called for strengthening the landmark legislation and provision for compulsory dissemination of all information related to the use of public money in order to usher in transparency and accountability in the Indian democracy.

"The democracy will survive only if we ensure transparency and accountability in our system and bridging the gap between what we say and what we do in public life," Roy remarked.

Observing that there was a mismatch between what was being said and done in public life, she demanded that the information related to all public dealings including the source of party funds, religious institutions, NGOs, social movements, press and for all that matter any other institution be made public by the people concerned.

PTI