- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN home minister Amit Shah on Friday (29) underlined the significance of the elections in the crucial northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh early next year to tell the electorate in the state that if they wanted to see Narendra Modi return as the prime minister in 2024, they would have to ensure that Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of UP, is elected again.
Adityanath is currently serving his first tenure as the chief minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the 2017 state elections.
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Addressing the launch of ‘Mera Parivaar-BJP Parivaar’ (My family – BJP family) membership drive in Lucknow, the capital of UP, Shah said, “If you want to make Modi PM again in 2024, make Yogi the CM again in 2022. We will make UP the number one state. Without UP there cannot be a government at the Centre and the credit of the Narendra Modi governments in 2014 and 2019 goes completely to people of Uttar Pradesh.”
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Shah, who played a key role behind the BJP’s big wins in UP, considered India’s most important state politically, in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, said the government in the state had fulfilled 90 per cent of promises made in its 2017 manifesto and the remaining work would also be completed by the Adityanath government in the next two months.
“Today I can proudly say that Yogi ji and his team have fulfilled 90 per cent of the promises that we made in our 2017 manifesto. I want to say to Yogi ji to march towards 100 per cent target in upcoming months so that people can believe that BJP fulfils whatever it says,” Shah, who is the second most-powerful leader in the BJP after Modi, said.
He also expressed confidence that the BJP would cross the 300-seat mark in the 2022 elections. In the 2017 polls, the BJP won 312 seats in the 403-member assembly in UP and secured nearly 40 per cent of the vote share.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), which was in power till then, got only 47 seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), another major player in UP politics, got 19. The Indian National Congress managed to get only seven seats.
Speaking about Ayodhya’s Ram Janmbhoomi Temple, Shah said. “Did anyone even imagine there will be a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and reminded Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav of his jibe, ‘Mandir wahin baneyenge, tithi nahi batayenge’ (we will build the temple at that very place but won’t tell the date).”
The BJP leader also slammed the opposition parties in the state saying outfits like the SP and BSP played games for many years that resulted in the destruction of UP.
“Seeing the law and order situation of UP, my blood used to boil. From west UP people were migrating. But now, no one can dare to make anyone migrate. Today, there are no ‘bahubalis’ (musclemen). This change is because of the BJP government,” he said.
He also said unlike the opposition parties, the BJP governments work for the poorest of the poor.
