Bharatiya Janata President JP Nadda on Tuesday wrote to his Congress counterpart Sonia Gandhi, accusing the Opposition party of “misleading people and creating false panic” on the prevailing pandemic situation.

Several BJP leaders, including Union ministers, took to Twitter to share the four-page letter, which came a day after the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution calling the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic “a grave calamity and direct consequence of the Modi government’s indifference, insensitivity and incompetence”.

“You must ask yourselves – in times as these, is your party’s conduct weakening the morale of these Covid warriors?” Nadda wrote in his letter. “Deliberately or otherwise, are your actions trying to weaken this fight against Covid-19?”

Nadda accused leaders and chief ministers of states ruled by the Congress of contributing to vaccine hesitancy in the country. “Vaccine that is made in India should be a matter of national pride,” Nadda wrote. “Instead, Congress leaders tried to ridicule it and create doubts in the minds of people.”

He also called the Congress out for criticising the Centre’s vaccination policy for third phase of inoculation which leaves states with the onus of procuring shots from the manufacturers for those in the age group of 18-44. Nadda said Congress leaders were criticising the policy even as they were demanding “decentralisation of vaccination” till April.

Nadda called upon states ruled by the Congress to provide free vaccination, even though states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Jharkhand have already made such announcements.

Mentioning Congress MP Rahul Gandhi specifically, the BJP chief accused Congress leaders of “duplicity and pettiness” in the fight against coronavirus pandemic.

He said the Congress party opposed lockdowns in the past and was demanding for it now. The BJP president also accused Congress of “causing a spike in Covid cases” in Kerala by holding election rallies in the state.

His comment came despite of the fact that the BJP itself held rallies in Kerala and all other states in the recently held Assembly elections even as the second wave of the pandemic mounted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Nadda himself were among several BJP leaders who took part in such rallies. In fact, Amit Shah last month said it was not right to link surge coronavirus cases in the country to elections.

On the Congress’ criticism of the Centre’s decision to continue with the Central Vista project amid the pandemic, Nadda said that the need for a new Parliament was raised “as early as the UPA [United Progressive Alliance regime] times”.

“People are also contrasting the Congress’ stand on Central Vista with the Chhattisgarh government going ahead to build a new assembly complex,” he wrote.

The Central Vista project, an initiative of the Narendra Modi government, aims to redevelop a 3.2-km stretch called the Central Vista that lies at the heart of Lutyens Delhi built by the British in the 1930s. It involves tearing down and rebuilding several government buildings, including iconic landmarks, and constructing a new Parliament at a total cost of Rs 20,000 crore. The construction of the prime minister and vice president’s residences is likely to be over by 2022.

The Congress has criticised the project as the prime minister’s “personal vanity project” and added that it showed the “height of callousness and insensitivity” of the Modi government amid the massive surge in coronavirus cases in India, and was an “insult to the people of the country”.

India is battling a severe second wave of the coronavirus. It has reported more than 3 lakh cases a day every day for the past three weeks, since April 22. On May 1, it hit a new record by crossing the 4-lakh mark, the highest single-day tally by any country in the world. This was surpassed on May 7, when India recorded 4.14 lakh daily cases.

So far in May, India’s daily tally has crossed the 4-lakh mark on five days. Thousands have died every day, but reports allege that the government is severely undercounting Covid-19 deaths.