BJP chief JP Nadda accuses Congress of weakening COVID-19 fight; Read letter to Sonia here

In a letter addressed to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, BJP chief JP Nadda accused her party of weakening the fight against COVID-19. Maintaining that PM Modi is working closely with all CMs to defeat the novel coronavirus, he elaborated on the Centre's efforts, "Priority areas are augmenting medical capacities and ensuring adequate facilities to those suffering. Efforts are underway to ensure all parts are equipped with adequate medicine and other materials required to combat COVID-19". 

He claimed that the top echelons of the Congress party including Chief Ministers were misleading people, creating false panic and contradicting their previous stances based on political consideration. Nadda stressed, "While there are certainly a few members of your party who (like several other selfless citizens) are doing commendable work in helping people, their hard work gets eclipsed by the consistent negativity spread by the more senior members of the party". Citing the initial apprehensions of Congress leaders regarding COVAXIN, the BJP president alleged that this led to vaccine hesitancy. 

Countering Congress Working Committee's charge that the Centre had abdicated its responsibility on inoculation, he recalled topmost leaders of the Sonia Gandhi-led party had themselves pushed for "decentralization of vaccination". Maintaining that the Centre continues to provide 50% of the total vaccines free of cost, he challenged the Congress governments in various states to provide vaccines for free. Moreover, he lamented that ventilators sent through the PM CARES fund were lying unused in some states. 

Here is a copy of the letter:

In the letter, Nadda also took a dig at former Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his conflicting stance on the lockdown and election rallies. Additionally, the Rajya Sabha MP asserted that there is no conflict in spending money on the Central Vista project when the country is fighting the COVID-19 crisis. To buttress his point, the BJP president emphasised that many Congress leaders too had underscored the need for a new Parliament building and pointed out that even Chhattisgarh is building a new Assembly complex.

Striking a reconciliatory note towards the end, he promised that the Centre will remain proactive to trounce the novel coronavirus.  At present, there are 37,15,221 active novel coronavirus cases in India while 1,90,27,304 patients have recovered and 2,49,992 deaths have been reported.  A total of 13,55,16,085 persons have been inoculated in the country till now, 3,62,44,507 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.