Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday appealed to the people of Uttar Pradesh to vote for the BJP, appering to launch into campaign mode more than a year before the Assembly polls.

Shah claimed that only his party had brought the heartland state out of crisis when other political outfits had pushed it into acute poverty.

“The Congress, SP and the BSP had made UP a bimaru (sick) state but we have made it a breakthrough state,” he said, addressing a gathering at the Rashtra Prerana Sthal, a park recently developed by the Yogi Adityanath government here in memory of RSS veterans.

“The people of the state supported the BJP in 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2022. The elections are next year. I am here to make an appeal to the people of Uttar Pradesh to bring back the BJP with a majority,” Shah said.

“With Narendra Modiji above and Yogi Adityanathji below, they have tried to give their best to UP,” he added.

Shah and chief minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated a handicraft fair and a “One District, One Cuisine” festival and gave the slogan of “Developed UP, Developed Bharat”.

Shah said when they were preparing the manifesto for Uttar Pradesh in Delhi in 2017, they had included a promise to develop “One District, One Product”.

“It was successfully implemented not only in UP but in many states of the country thereafter,” he said.