New Delhi, May 11 (IANS): The Congress on Tuesday accused the BJP of being "arrogant", soon after BJP President J.P. Nadda shot off a letter to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi, and said that raising issues and making suggestions to the government on the pandemic is the duty of the opposition parties.

In his letter to interim Congress President 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 shed the arrogance and help the people.

The party 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. The 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 which 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."

In his letter to Sonia Gandhi, Nadda 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 the four-page letter, Nadda said, "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.