Two days after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flagging BJP leaders’ objectionable remarks against Rahul Gandhi, BJP chief JP Nadda has shot off a letter to Kharge, listing derogatory terms used by Congress leaders against the Prime Minister in the past.

Taking a swipe at Gandhi, Nadda wrote that the Congress has again tried to polish and relaunch a “failed product” that the people have rejected several times.

“Wasn’t it Rahul Gandhi’s mother Sonia Gandhi who used the derogatory expression ‘maut ka saudagar’ (merchant of death) for Modiji? You and your party glorified such shameless statements. Had the Congress forgotten political decorum then?” asked Nadda, also the Union Health Minister.

Nadda wrote that the country’s oldest party has become a “copy & paste” party due to Mr Gandhi’s pressure and has imbibed his ills.

Congress leaders, he wrote, called the Prime Minister “snake”, “scorpion”, “demon”, “pickpocket”, and “coward”. “Even his parents were insulted,” Nadda added.

The BJP president accused Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, of resorting to politics of reservation and caste and inciting people against each other. “Then he goes abroad and talks about ending reservation and snatching away rights of people from Dalit, backward classes and tribal communities,” he wrote.