Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has asked PM Narendra Modi to take off the "rose-tinted glasses through which nothing is seen except the Central Vista", mounting a fresh attack on Modi government even as BJP chief J P Nadda wrote to Sonia Gandhi slamming Rahul's "duplicity and pletiness" and tersely asking Congress to eschew from creating panic.
In the letter, Nadda slammed "the consistent negativity spread by the more senior members" of Congress and the "confusion" created by Congress Chief Ministers. This interestingly drew a sharp riposte from Mohua Moitra, Lok Sabha MP from Trinamool Congress, which won the recent West Bengal Assembly polls for the third time establishing Mamata Banerjee firmly in the front benches of PM Modi's Opposition.
"JP Nadda writes to Sonia Gandhi, urging to not weaken the country's fight against Covid Why doesn’t he just write to the PM urging to strengthen fight against Covid?," Moitra tweeted under the hashtag #GiveItUpGuys.
A data war between the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress seems on the anvil. Nadda also critiqued Congress's stand on Covid-19 and accused the party of "misleading people, creating false panic and contradicting their own stands on political considerations".
A day after the Congress Working Committee found fault with the vaccination strategy unveiled by the government and slammed the "opaque” pricing policy, shortage of medicines, oxygen and hospital beds, Nadda, in a four-page-long letter, said, "The data from February and March would reveal which states failed to track the rising cases. Why are mortality rates in states such as Punjab (Congress-ruled) so high? These are questions you must ask your own Chief Ministers."
He also brought in the Supreme Court's observations to put Congress on the defensive. "No less than the Supreme Court, the highest court of our land, said the health infrastructure we have inherited over the last 70 years is inadequate. Needless to say, which party has dominated India's landscape in these seven decades," Nadda said while insisting that "our focus is solely on the pandemic and not on politics". He also mentioned that the letter was not only in his capacity as the president of one party but also as the Union health minister.
While the Congress on Monday expressed revulsion at the shocking expenditure priorities of the BJP government over continuance of the Central Vista project and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “atone for his mistakes”, Nadda slammed the "new trend in Congress party to put all blame on the Modi government or the project".
"The need for a new Parliament was raised as early as the UPA times," Nadda said, recalling that former Speaker Meira Kumar herself underscored the need for a new Parliament building. He also sought to contrast the stand of Congress on Central Vista with the Chhattisgarh government (of Congress) going ahead to build a new Assembly complex.
Going hammer and tongs against the Gandhis, particularly Rahul, who has unleashed a campaign of sorts against Modi government's handling of the pandemic, Nadda said in this fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the conduct of topmost Congress leaders, including former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. will be remembered for "duplicity and pettiness".
The BJP chief said he was saddened by the conduct of Congress during this challenging time, "the consistent negativity spread by the more senior members of the party" and the "confusion" created by Congress members, including its chief ministers.
Nadda was particularly incensed at the CWC's charge about the Modi government "abdicating responsibility" on vaccination by also asking states to procure the jab in the third phase vaccination starting May 1. "In April itself, topmost Congress leaders were calling for decentralisation of vaccination," he said. He also said while India has almost no recent history of vaccine hesitancy, the Congress tried to create it during a once-in-a-century pandemic.
"States which have BJP or NDA governments have announced their resolve to help the poor and underprivileged by providing vaccines for free. I am sure the Congress governments in various states also feel strongly for the poor. Can they also come out with a similar decision to provide vaccines for free?" Nadda asked.
He also drew attention of the Congress to the visuals of "ventilators sent through the PM-CARES fund lying unused in certain states" and asked Gandhi to address these issues on priority. News reports, however, show such ventilators were found lying unused not only in Opposition-ruled states, but also in the BJP and NDA-ruled ones.
Indicating clearly that Congress would keep up the heat on the government on the issue, the party later fielded its senior leader Ajay Maken, who alleged "the government in its arrogance was only focussed on scoring its political goals even as Congress kept on warning about the pandemic". Maken also insisted that it is not Congress which is politicising the Covid crisis and it has not written any letter to a political party.
"We have raised questions on the government. This is not BJP versus Congress. This is Government versus Opposition," he said seeking to give a larger canvas to Congress to protest on the issue. Congress spokesperson Jaiver Shergil said, "Blame game politics will not absolve BJP's sins of ignoring the crisis."
In the backdrop of the BJP having faced flak over holding mammoth election rallies in West Bengal amid the pandemic, Nadda accused Congress of "holding massive election rallies in Kerala causing a spike in Covid cases while grandstanding about election rallies elsewhere" and "supporting protests (farmer protest and some others) but speaking about following Covid guidelines".
"Even when the second wave was on the rise, your party leaders were happier being seen in superspreader political events in North India, where there was no regard for social distancing. This is not the era when such information can be erased from public memory, " Nadda said.