Congress president Sonia Gandhi is trying to extract political mileage by writing 'letters of distress' to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged on Thursday.

Party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi claimed that 'inept' governance provided by the chief ministers of the Congress ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan was responsible for the drought-like situation prevailing in those states.

"The masses in the Congress-ruled states are in deep distress as the chaal, chehra and charitra of the Congress leaders have been widely exposed," he said.

He accused the Congress chief of indulging in 'diversionary' tactics. Sonia Gandhi, he said, should have the courage to take Congress chief ministers to task for 'sheer non-performance'.

He said the Union government had provided assistance under various central schemes to states in distress and wondered why the Congress-ruled states were the only ones complaining.

"You can independently assess how much central assistance the Congress-ruled states have received so that Sonia's endeavour to politically gain by criticising the Vajpayee government can be exposed," Naqvi said.