Soon after BJP President JP Nadda shot off a letter to Sonia Gandhi in response to her criticising the Centre’s handling of the pandemic, Congress on Tuesday accused the BJP of being “arrogant”.

Nadda had in the letter said that raising issues and making suggestions to the government on the pandemic is the duty of the opposition parties.

In the letter to Sonia Gandhi, Nadda lashed out at her party saying that in the fight against the pandemic, the conduct of topmost Congress leaders, including its former chief Rahul Gandhi, will be remembered for its “duplicity and pettiness”.

Addressing a press conference here, Congress General Secretary Ajay Maken said the situation in the country is pathetic as dead bodies were seen floating in the Ganga river in Bihar’s Buxar district on Monday.

“The government is unable to provide treatment, vaccines and even honorable last rites to the deceased,” Maken said as he asked the government to “shed the arrogance and help the people”.

Congress said the BJP should follow ‘Rajdharma’ as the Congress is only doing its duty and the government should accept its mistake in handling the pandemic and start free vaccination for all. Congress also reiterated its demand for an all-party meeting on the Covid situation.

Rejecting the saffron party’s charge of doing politics at the time of crisis, Maken said that it is the BJP that wants to make it political as the letters written by the Congress leaders were addressed to the Prime Minister and not the BJP President.

“It’s not a case of BJP vs Congress, it’s the people who are suffering. The opposition is only showing the way to the government, but the government is trying to give it a political colour,” Maken said.

Attacking Nadda, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said in a tweet, “Instead of writing accusatory letter to the Congress, Nadda should write an apology letter on behalf of the BJP for pushing the nation into hell fire of Covid-19 second wave.”

Nadda, in his letter to Sonia Gandhi also said that the top leaders of the Congress should stop misleading the people by creating false panic and by contradicting their stands based on just political considerations.

“In this fight against the pandemic, the conduct of the topmost Congress leaders, including former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, will be remembered for duplicity and pettiness.

“Your party, under your leadership, is doing no favours to itself by opposing lockdowns and then demanding for the same, ignoring the Centre’s advisories on the second wave of Covid and then saying they did not get any information, holding massive election rallies in Kerala causing a spike in Covid cases while grandstanding about election rallies elsewhere, supporting protests but speaking about following Covid guidelines,” Nadda said in the four-page letter.

(With IANS inputs)