Vijay Rupani and Ahmed Patel attacked each other on Twitter.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Saturday attacked senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel after the latter questioned the government over the number of coronavirus tests conducted in Ahmedabad which accounts for a vast majority of COVID-19 cases in the state.
As on Friday afternoon, Gujarat has 9,932 coronavirus positive cases, including 606 deaths, and 4,035 people having recovered from the infection.
Of this, Ahmedabad accounts for 7,171 COVID-19 cases, 479 deaths, with 2,382 people having recovered.
Mr Patel, in a tweet, attached a graph showing the number of tests in Ahmedabad dropping from 2,522 on May 1 to 1,240 on May 14.
"Why is Gujarat government reducing testing? This is very disturbing & is contrary to national policy of increasing tests. In a pandemic it is important to be honest about the problem rather than trying to conceal it," Mr Patel tweeted.
As per the graph shared by Mr Patel, 1,724 samples were tested for coronavirus in Ahmedabad district on May 17, as against 2,522 samples on May 1.
On May 12, 1,227 samples were tested, while on May 13, it was 1,503 samples, and 1,240 on May 14, Mr Patel's graph showed.
Hitting back, Chief Minister Rupani tweeted a table of total tests conducted in Gujarat, as well as in Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara districts till May 16.
"Mr. AHMED PATEL, Gujarat has not at all decreased number of tests. Kindly recheck your information sources which are far away from facts and ground realities," he said in his tweet.
Rupani said Gujarat had so far tested 1,27,858 samples for coronavirus, at the rate of 1,943.3 samples per million people, which was higher than the country's per million average of 1,478 tests.
He said 52,277 samples had been tested in Ahmedabad district, at the rate of 6419.5 samples per million.
Surat saw 23,928 samples being tested, which is 3479.5 samples per million, while in Vadodara, the figure was 6,371 samples, at a rate of 2,048.8 samples per million.