A leaked letter from the Agra mayor about the poor state of the Covid-19 fight in the city has raised a question mark over chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s reported claim that the whole world should follow the “Agra model” to fight the novel coronavirus.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav have now appealed to the Adityanath government to take the Agra mayor’s letter seriously and adopt the necessary measures.

Naveen Jain, BJP mayor of Agra, had in his April 21 letter — circulated widely on social media on Sunday — urged Adityanath “with folded hands” to focus on his city.

“Agra may become the Wuhan of the country. The local administration is proving worthless in controlling the situation,” Jain had written.

“Tests (for Covid-19) have not been done for many days at the quarantine centres in the hotspot areas. There is no arrangement for food and water for the patients….The situation is explosive.”

Jain had added: “I am sorry to say that my Agra is passing through a phase of crisis. There is a need to take tough decisions to save Agra. The situation has become grave. I pray to you with folded hands to save Agra.”

Media reports have said, and officials have confirmed to The Telegraph, that a self-congratulatory Adityanath had at several meetings with officials in the second week of April boasted that the whole world should follow the “Agra model” of curbing Covid-19.

On April 12, around the time Adityanath was making this claim, there were 92 positive cases in Agra district. The count was 313 when the mayor wrote the letter on April 21. According to local officers, it was 381 on Monday. Eleven patients have died of Covid-19 in the district.

“The chief minister had said the Agra administration had broken the chain of the virus’s spread by quickly identifying the hotspots and implementing a micro-plan with the help of a large number of quick response teams and a war room. He had asked officials to publicise the Agra model,” an official who didn’t want to be named told this newspaper.

The letter’s authenticity couldn’t be verified from Jain as calls to both his mobile numbers elicited a recorded response from the service provider that they were “out of the coverage area”.

Jain, however, has not contradicted the media and social media reports about his letter, on which Priyanka tweeted on Sunday and Akhilesh on Monday.

“The situation is deplorable in Agra and new patients are emerging every day. The Agra mayor has said the situation would go out of control if proper management was not done.... The government should take the Agra mayor’s letter on a positive note,” Priyanka wrote in Hindi.

Akhilesh tweeted: “According to the mayor, the chief minister’s much-publicised Agra model has failed and the city might turn into a Wuhan….Wake up government, wake up.”