Lucknow, Feb 4 (IANS): MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday appealed to the people of Uttar Pradesh to help him uproot the Samajwadi party (SP) from the state.

Time has come for the people to shut the vote bank shop of the ruling party, Owaisi said while addressing a rally at the Eidgah ground in favour of his party candidate Pradeep Kumar Kori for the Bikapur assembly by-poll.

He said the SP tried its best to prevent his entry in Uttar Pradesh as its leaders were scared that he will "close down their shops" being run to fool the minority communities.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) leader dropped enough hints that his party would focus on the Dalits and Muslims in the 2017 assembly elections.

"SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is most scared of me as he knows that I will expose him and his politics whereby he has treated Dalits and Muslims only as a vote bank," Owaisi said.

The MIM leader also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party of making false promises to the people of India and said that they were trying to end reservation for Dalits at behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.