The Prime Minister's Office on Sunday said that an avoidable controversy has been created through a "deliberate and mischievious misinterpretation" of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on minorities at the National Development Council meeting on Saturday.
"Through a deliberate and mischievious misinterpretation of what the prime minister said in New Delhi on Saturday at the meeting of NDC on fiscal priorities of the government, an avoidable controversy has been generated," a PMO statement said in New Delhi.
The PMO also blamed some sections of the electronic media for "fuelling a baseless controversy" by quoting Dr Singh out of context.
The statement said Dr Singh's reference to the first claim on resources referred to all the priority areas, including programmes for the upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs, women and children and minorities.
In his speech on Saturday Dr Singh had said, "I believe our collective priorities are clear: agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure and essential public investments needs of general infrastructure along with programmes for upliftment of SCs/STs, OBCs, minorities and women and children.
"The component plans for SCs and STs will need to be revitalised. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of develpoment. They must have the first claim on resources," Dr Singh said.
Dr Singh said the Centre had myriad other responsibilities whose demands would have to be fitted withn the overall resource availability.
The PMO statement noted the prime minister made the observations after referring to the "very good performance of the Indian economy in recent months and the expectations that the economy would continue to do well creating new income and employment opportunities for all sections of the society.
"While better off sections of the society will benefit from this process, it is the responsibility of the government to pay special attention to the welfare of weaker and marginalised sections," the statement added.