Home Minister P. Chidambaram today clarified that his comments regarding the impact of rising prices on the middle class, have been delibrately distorted by a newspaper report. In a statement issued today, the Minister said that he had not mocked anyone in the press conference held in Bangalore yesterday. He said, he had explained that the rise in food prices was due to the need to pay more to the farmers. The statement said that in an answer to a question on the burden of rising prices on the common man, the Home Minister had referred to the need for giving higher Minimum Support Prices, MSPs, to the farmers and the benefits of programmes like MGNREGA and PMGSY which directly assist the poorest section of the society.