Congress creating false panic: Nadda in letter to Sonia

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda on Tuesday wrote a letter to his Congress counterpart, Sonia Gandhi, asking her and the party including its chief ministers to stop “misleading people, creating false panic” over the Covid-19 pandemic and contradictory stands on the vaccination policy.

The letter came a day after the Congress Working Committee on Monday passed a resolution calling the second Covid-19 wave a “grave calamity and direct consequence of the Modi government’s indifference, insensitivity, and incompetence.”

Nadda, in his four-page response to Gandhi, said, “Vaccine that is made in India should be a matter of national pride. Instead, Congress leaders tried to ridicule it and create doubts in the minds of people. Even the chief ministers belonging to your party indulged in such antics. In a nation that has almost no recent history of vaccine hesitancy, your party has the dubious record of trying to actively create [it], that too, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic.”

Nadda said that BJP ruled states have announced their resolve to help the poor and underprivileged by providing vaccines for free. “I am sure that 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?”

On the Congress’s opposition to the Central Vista, Nadda said the need for a new Parliament was raised during the Congressled United Progressive Alliance rule.

The Congress hit back at Nadda over the letter, with party general secretary Ajay Maken saying: “When the Congress is trying to play the role of a responsible opposition, adhering to raj dharma, the ruling party president writes a letter that smacks of usual arrogance. This is shameful.”