Yogi Adityanath Will Prove Critics Wrong: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

He was sworn in on Sunday.

Earlier, the firebrand leader was sworn in as Uttar Pradesh’s its 21st chief minister, heading a 47-member ministry that included known Hindutva faces and political turncoats.

A five-time parliamentarian from the Uttar Pradesh constituency of Gorakhpur, Mr Adityanath has a strong base of power in the east of the state. To start with, the ceremony at Lucknow started with the oath taking ceremony of Yogi Adityanath.

He was arrested for allegedly inciting Gorakhpur riots in 2007.

They failed to take into account his remark, soon after his name was announced, that he and the Government that he will head, would stick to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Sabka saath, sabka vikas formula.

Within hours of being nominated as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath spoke to Chief Secretary and Director General of Police (DGP) and directed them to maintain Law and Order at any cost.

The BJP has picked its national vice president Dinesh Sharma and state unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya as Deputy Chief Ministers. “The burden of his performance now rests on the prime minister, because there’s no doubt he was Modi’s choice”. He has a post-graduate degree in History and a diploma in Journalism. “People want development for all, without any discrimination”, he told the IANS news agency.

Senior state BJP leaders are of the view that the party, which always had loyal support from the upper castes, needs to focus on the new vote bank also in the state in the run up to 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

In contrast to his fiery speeches, Adityanath was reserved after the BJP’s massive victory last week. The first involved “love jihad” where he exhorted Hindu men to marry 100 Muslim women if one Hindu woman was forcibly converted.

This is an assault on India’s age-old “ganga jamuni tehzeeb” – a fusion of Hindu and Muslim cultures, he said.

In an apparent move to allay fears that he, as a long-time Hindutva icon, might discriminate against the minorities, Adityanath promised there would be no bias for or against anyone. And now we will see a model of exclusivist development. Clad in his signature saffron outfit, Adityanath pledged to follow the Constitution and serve the state.

If it were a country, Uttar Pradesh would be the world’s fifth-most populous.

Governor of Uttar Pradesh Ram Naik (C front) and newly appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath (R front) greet the crowd during Yogi Adityanath’s swearing-in ceremony in Lucknow, capital of northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on March 19, 2017.