Sonia's fervent appeal to Rae Bareli, Amethi voters

Away from the campaign trail this poll season, Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday made an emotional appeal to the voters in Uttar Pradesh asking them to defeat the "forces" that deprived them of the benefits of welfare schemes and "snatched away" everything from them.

In a letter to the voters of Rae Bareli and Amethi, the Nehru-Gandhi family pocket boroughs, ahead of fourth phase polling on Thursday, Gandhi appealed to them to vote for the Congress and strengthen her hands to initiate development in the area.

She, however, did not talk of the Congress- Samajwadi Party alliance and sought support for only her party's candidates.

Gandhi said that for some reasons, she could not canvass for Congress candidates in the area and asked the people to treat her letter as her personal message to them.

Noting that this election is very significant, the Congress President took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "achche din" promise, saying the Modi government has instead "snatched everything that the people had" and accused Modi of doing so to "save his own chair".

"For the first time, I feel pained to learn that this present central government is deliberately trying to deprive people of the benefits of welfare programme. Have you seen a government that works against and weaken its own people?

"Unfortunately, the Modi government is doing this only.

These people are working only for a handful of people and benefit a select few industrialists, the cost of which every poor is giving," she said in her letter.