Twenty-six years after securing a majority in the 1991 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Bharatiya Janata Party ,BJP) repeated this feat – and by and large – in the 2017 elections.
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Then BJP President Amit Shah was the key architect of the BJP’s victory, as he managed to create a rainbow support base of different castes for the party.
The BJP won 312 of the total 403 seats in UP, while its allies won 13 seats, including 9 of Apna Dal and 4 of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP). Samajwadi Party (SP) managed to get only 47 seats, taking the numbers of BSP and Congress to 19 and 7 respectively.
The saffron party at that time had several chief ministerial candidates, including prominent OBC leader Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was the party chief of the state, and the then Union minister. Manoj Sinha, But bypassing these names, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chose the then party MP Yogi Adityanath, who was sworn in as the 21st Chief Minister of UP on March 17, 2017.
Yogi Adityanath, who was born on 5 June 1972 in a village in Garhwal, Uttarakhand, is the head of the Goraksha Peeth in Gorakhpur, which has a significant influence in the region. Yogi is the successor of Mahant Avaidyanath in Goraksha Peeth. He has been a five-time MP from Gorakhpur.
Yogi became the fifth Thakur CM of UP (after TN Singh, VP Singh, Veer Bahadur Singh and Rajnath Singh) and third (after GB Pant, HN Bahuguna and ND Tiwari) from the Uttarakhand region. Uttarakhand was carved out of UP in 2000 as a separate state.
The BJP’s victory with an overwhelming majority in UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 2017 assembly elections came in the backdrop of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, which had led to polarization in the state.
After taking over as chief minister, Adityanath focused on various issues on which the track-record of his SP predecessor Akhilesh Yadav was considered weak.
The Adityanath government took law and order as a priority area, which resulted in a series of police encounters with alleged criminals, who also alleged murder or booking of “innocents” on caste and religious grounds in “fake encounters”. . It chased down several alleged criminals and demolished their “illegal” properties. In his speeches at rallies during his campaign for the 2022 assembly elections, Adityanath highlighted this “bulldozer drive” as part of his “major achievements”.
His government improved the availability of electricity across UP. There was resentment among a section of the youth due to rising unemployment, delayed or delayed recruitment in government jobs.
The Adianath government drew criticism from various quarters over the posting and transfer of officers and police officers, allegedly on the basis of caste.
A hardworking leader, Adityanath moved away from his family after becoming a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath. His father Anand Bisht passed away in April 2020 during the first Covid-induced lockdown, but could not attend his funeral. His profile on the Lok Sabha website mentions his predecessor and Goraksha Peeth guru Mahant Avaidyanath in his “father’s name” column.
Adityanath spearheaded the BJP’s high-voltage campaign for the 2022 elections, with the party leadership indicating that he would remain CM if the party retains the state.