New Delhi, April 25: The Congress is embarrassed with the Prime Minister’s call to parties to stop politicising price rise and the “misery of the people”.

It fears the party and the government might fall into the “feel-good” and “India Shining” traps, as the NDA once had, by putting a “gloss” over inflation and arguing that the situation is not as grim as is being portrayed.

Party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan was reticent when asked about the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) statement. “I do not want to comment on what the PM said.”

Sources said the Congress did not wish to “open a new front” with the CPM and its allies on an issue on which “we essentially don’t have a strong defence”.

The Congress is keen to see the next UPA-Left meeting on the nuclear deal pass without rancour and does not want to say or do anything to “vitiate the atmosphere”.

Natarajan’s only reaction was: “No doubt the government has taken steps and they are bearing fruit. Therefore, it is better to have a constructive approach on an issue that affects us all.”

Before her briefing, she was informed by M. Veerappa Moily, the media department head, that she would have to read out a statement from the PMO. Natarajan assumed it was a “clarification” on a controversy involving the PMO and the DMK’s shipping and surface transport minister, T.R. Baalu, on certain alleged dealings of his family.

When she saw it was a statement on inflation, she was taken aback and told Moily she would be parsimonious with her words.

Sources described the part about politicisation in the PMO statement as “apolitical and unnecessary”.

When reminded that spokespersons Manish Tewari and Moily had made similar pleas to parties, a source said: “But coming from the PM, especially after a meeting with Prakash Karat and his comrades, it has a different meaning. He could have restricted himself to the facts and the government’s measures instead of sending a political message which sounds apolitical and a bit illiberal.”

The sources, however, added that the Prime Minister had been “sensitive” about the Left’s joint price-rise protest with United National Progressive Alliance parties outside Parliament.