Third and Fourth Fronts formed to grab power: Sonia

Bhadrak (Orissa), Apr 19 : Lashing out at the Third and Fourth Fronts, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said on Saturday that these were formed to "grab power and chair".

"There are several fronts for grabbing power and chair. These fronts have no ideals, principles and also no future," Gandhi told an election meeting in Bhadrak.


These fronts, she said, also have no political agenda for the betterment of the country and welfare of the people except to criticise the UPA government at the Centre headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. 

Hitting out at BJP, she said, "Congress never does politics in the name of religion on communal lines, whereas BJP is a communal party with an agenda to divide society." 

The UPA chairperson also lambasted the Naveen Patnaik government in Orissa accusing it of "throwing all development works and welfare schemes into the sea".


Though the Congress-led UPA government pumped in thousands of crores of rupees into Orissa for development, the BJD failed to utilise the funds, Gandhi said. The state, she said, had been pushed to backwardness due to "misrule" by the Naveen Patnaik government in the last nine years.

Claiming that the country had made giant strides in the field of science and technology and space research during the UPA rule, Gandhi said a number of schemes had been implemented for speedy rural development and welfare of the poor.


The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Rural Health Mission and many other programmes were introduced by the UPA, but Orissa failed to get the benefit as it diverted Central funds, she alleged. 

Citing an example, the Congress president said the Centre had released Rs 42 crore for flood management in Bhadrak, but the state had "failed" to initiate work.