Yogi Adityanath

Yogi Adityanath (born Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht; 5 June 1972) is an Indian Hindu monk and politician, belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party who has been serving as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 19 March 2017. He is the longest serving chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, being in office for 7 years years, and the only UP chief minister to have two consecutive terms.

Previously, Adityanath served as a member of India's parliament for almost two decades, from 1998 until 2017. At the age of 26, he became one of the youngest Indian parliamentarians in 1998 and went on to win the next five consecutive terms from Gorakhpur (Lok Sabha Constituency). In 2017, he moved from central to the UP state politics and was elected as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Initially, in 2017, he became a member of the UP legislative council. Subsequently, in 2022, he became a member of the state legislative assembly, having won the election from Gorakhpur Urban (assembly constituency).

Adityanath is also the mahant (head priest) of the Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu monastery in Gorakhpur, a position he has held since September 2014 following the death of Mahant Avaidyanath, his spiritual Guru. He is the founder of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu nationalist organisation. He has an image of a Hindutva nationalist and a social conservative.

Early life and education
Yogi Adityanath was born as Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht on 5 June 1972 in the village of Panchur, in Pauri Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand) in a Garhwali Rajput family. His late father, Anand Singh Bisht, was a forest ranger. He was the second born in the family, among four brothers and three sisters. He completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.

He left his home around the 1990s to join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement. Around that time, he also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath, the chief of the Gorakhnath Math. Mahant Avaidyanath was leading the Ayodhya Ram temple movement at that time. While based in Gorakhpur after his initiation, Adityanath has often visited his ancestral village, establishing a school there in 1998.

Adityanath was promoted to the rank of Mahant or high priest of the Gorakhnath Math after the death of Avaidyanath on 12 September 2014. He was made Peethadhishwar (Head Seer) of the Math amid traditional rituals of the Nath sect two days later.

Early political career
Yogi Adityanath belongs to a specific tradition of Hindutva politics in Uttar Pradesh that can be traced back to the Mahant Digvijay Nath, who led the placing of idols in the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 22 December 1949. Both Digvijay Nath and his successor Avaidyanath belonged to the Hindu Mahasabha and were elected to the Parliament on that party's ticket. After the BJP and the Sangh Parivar joined the Ayodhya movement in the 1980s, the two strands of Hindu nationalism came together. Avaidyanath switched to the BJP in 1991, but nevertheless maintained significant autonomy. Four years after Adityanath was designated Avaidyanath's successor, he was elected to the Lower House of the Indian Parliament (the Lok Sabha).

After his first electoral win, Adityanath started his own youth organisation Hindu Yuva Vahini, which came to be known for its activities in eastern Uttar Pradesh and was instrumental in Adityanath's meteoric rise. There have been recurrent tensions between Adityanath and the BJP leadership over the allocating election tickets. However, the BJP has not let the tensions mount because Adityanath has served as a star campaigner for the party.

In 2006, he took up links between Nepali Maoists and Indian Leftist parties as a key campaign issue and encouraged Madhesi leaders to oppose Maoism in Nepal. In 2008, his convoy was reportedly attacked while en route to Azamgarh for an anti-terrorism rally. The attack left one person dead and at least six persons injured.

In January 2007, Adityanath along with other BJP leaders had gathered to mourn the death of a man who was killed because of religious violence. He and his supporters were subsequently arrested by the police and lodged in Gorakhpur jail on the charges of disturbing peace and violating prohibitory orders. His arrest led to further unrest during which several coaches of the Mumbai bound Mumbai–Gorakhpur Godan Express were burnt, allegedly by protesting Hindu Yuva Vahini activists. The day after the arrest, the District Magistrate and the local police chief were transferred and replaced.

Member of Parliament
When elected to the 12th Lok Sabha at the age of 26, Adityanath was its youngest member. He was elected to the Parliament from Gorakhpur for five consecutive terms (in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014 elections).

Adityanath's attendance in Lok Sabha was 77% and he asked 284 questions, participated in 56 debates and introduced three private member Bills in the 16th Lok Sabha.

It is said that Adityanath once stated: "If one Hindu girl marries a Muslim man, then we will take 100 Muslim girls in return ... If they kill one Hindu man, then we will kill 100 Muslim men."

Relations with the BJP
In 1998, Yogi Adityanath was elected to the Indian Parliament after joining the BJP; however, there were reports of his strained relations with the state BJP leaders. It has also been alleged that he often derided and criticised the dilution of the Hindutva ideology by the BJP in the 1990s and early 2000s. Having established his independent power base in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, with the support of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and the Gorakhnath Math, he felt confident to be able to dictate terms to the BJP. When his voice was not heard, he revolted by fielding candidates against the official BJP candidates. The most prominent example was the fielding of Radha Mohan Das Agarwal from Gorakhpur on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket in 2002, who then defeated BJP Cabinet minister, Shiv Pratap Shukla by a wide margin. In 2007, Adityanath threatened to field 70 candidates for the state assembly against the BJP candidates. But he reached a compromise in the end. In the 2009 Parliamentary elections, Adityanath was rumoured to have campaigned against the BJP candidates who were then defeated.

Despite his periodic revolts, Yogi Adityanath has been kept in good humour by the RSS and the BJP leaders. The deputy prime minister L. K. Advani, the RSS chief Rajendra Singh and the VHP chief Ashok Singhal have visited him in Gorakhpur. During 22–24 December 2006, Adityanath organised a three-day Virat Hindu Mahasammelan at Gorakhpur at the same time as the BJP National Executive Meet in Lucknow. Despite the conflict, several RSS and VHP leaders attended the Mahasammelan, which issued a commitment to pursue the Hindutva goals despite the BJP's claimed "abandonment" of them.

In March 2010, he was among the few BJP leaders, who pushed for a discussion in the party on the women's quota issue, following Gopinath Munde's advocacy for OBC sub-quota within the Women's Reservation Bill.

In 2018, Yogi Adityanath supported and campaigned for fellow Hindu monk and BJP candidate Pratap Puriji Maharaj, the head of the Taratara math, in the Rajasthan state assembly election.

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (2017–present)
Adityanath was a prominent campaigner for the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The state government appointed him as a Chief Minister on 18 March 2017; he was sworn in the next day, after the BJP won the assembly elections.

Ministry allocation
After becoming the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath kept around 36 ministries under his direct control, including Home, Housing, Town and country planning department, Revenue, Food and Civil Supplies, Food Security and drug administration, Economics and Statistics, Mines and Minerals, Flood control, Stamp and registry, Prison, General administration, Secretariat administration, Vigilance, Personnel and appointment, Information, Institutional finance, Planning, Estate department, Urban land, UP state reorganisation committee, Administration reforms, Programme implementation, National integration, Infrastructure, Coordination, Language, External aided project, Relief and Rehabilitation, Public Service Management, Rent Control, Consumer protection and Weights and measures.

In his first cabinet meeting, held on 4 April 2017, the decision was taken to forgive loans to nearly 87 lakh (8,700,000) small and marginal farmers of Uttar Pradesh, amounting to inr 363590000000. For India's Independence Day celebrations in 2017, his government singled out Muslim religious schools, requiring them to provide video evidence that their students had sung the Indian national anthem.

Law and order
In 2017, his government ordered the withdrawal of around 20,000 "politically motivated" cases, including those against himself and other politicians.

Adityanath ordered the forming of quasi-vigilante anti-"romeo" squads. He imposed a blanket ban on cow-smuggling and a stay on UPPSC civil service exam results, exams and interviews until further order. He imposed a ban on the vices of tobacco, paan and gutka in government offices across the state, and compelled officials to pledge to devote 100 hours every year for the Swachh Bharat Mission. More than 100 "black sheep" policemen were suspended by the Uttar Pradesh police.

Since 2017, Adityanath had ordered the closing of many slaughterhouses. As a direct consequence, the tanneries that sourced raw leather from the slaughterhouses were impacted. Several tanneries were also ordered to be shut down. The tannery industry was estimated to be worth 50,0000 crore ₹ in 2017. The industry directly or indirectly gave employment to more than 10 lakh people. Since 2018, through executive orders, CM Adityanath had closed around 200 tanneries out of more than 400 that were active in Jajamau, Kanpur.

In the first 10 months of his first term, he conducted four police encounters per day. National human rights commission issued a notice to the state government and a bench of three judges from the Supreme Court of India warned and issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government in this case.

Committee Against Assault on Journalists found that 138 cases of persecution of journalists were registered under Yogi Adityanath's term in Uttar Pradesh between 2017 and February 2022.

After the Citizenship Amendment Act protests in Uttar Pradesh, he put up hoardings with names, photographs and addresses of protestors. Only after the order of the High Court, which called his government's action "shameless" and an "unwarranted interference in privacy", the posters were removed.



Infrastructure development
In July 2018, Adityanath, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Moon Jae-in, president of South Korea, inaugurated the world's largest smartphone manufacturing factory in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. His government was credited for making 50 megawatts of power and a 22 km electricity line in a record four months for the Samsung mobile plant.

In November 2019, the Uttar Pradesh government along with the Ministry of Defense laid the foundation stone of the Defence Industrial Corridor project in Jhansi. Yogi Adityanath held consultations with private firms in order to increase private investment in the defence corridor project.

The New York Times relayed analysts' estimations of Adityanath as a candidate for Prime Minister of India in 2024, provided he "delivers on some fronts". In August 2020, India Today "Mood of the nation" survey showed Adityanath as the best-performing chief minister in India.

Ordinance and bills
In September 2020, Adityanath asked his government to devise a strategy to prevent "religious conversions in the name of love", and even considered passing an ordinance for the same if needed. On 31 October, Adityanath announced that a Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 to curb "Love Jihad" would be passed by his government.

The Uttar Pradesh state cabinet cleared Adityanath's ordinance on 24 November 2020. following which it was approved and signed by state Governor Anandiben Patel on 28 November 2020.

In July 2021, Adityanath introduced the UP population control draft bill 2021–2030. On the event of World Population Day, the chief minister unveiled the policy on reducing population growth for the forthcoming years. There were also several benefits announced based on the laid single-child and two-child policies. He said the state population policy focused on efforts to increase the accessibility of contraceptive measures issued under the Family Planning Programme and provide a proper system for safe abortion. This policy also received lots of reactions and criticisms from other political parties. It was said that this policy mainly focused on the upcoming general elections in the state. The opposition Congress in the state has called it a "political agenda" and the Samajwadi Party said it is "murder of democracy".

Second term (2022–present)
On 10 March 2022, with the announcement of the legislative assembly results, the BJP-led NDA alliance secured 273 seats with Adityanath winning his second term. He and his party wrote history, being the first chief minister to return to power after completing a full 5-year term in office. The BJP is also the first party to return to power consecutively after 37 years. He was only the third chief minister, in Uttar Pradesh's political history to complete a full 5-year term as the chief minister of the state after Mayawati of BSP and Akhilesh Yadav belonging to the Samajwadi Party.

In the buildup to the assembly elections, Adityanath successfully used a campaign with a bulldozer as its main image, earning him the nickname "Bulldozer Baba". The term had initially been used as a taunt by an opposition party. His speeches during the polls included hate speeches against Muslims, promoting religious polarisation and Hindu supremacy. Further, his speeches included the idea that the rights of Hindus are at odds with that of Muslims, where he repeatedly conflated Muslims with terrorists and criminals, and the opposition parties as appeasers of Muslims. He is seen as a potential successor of Prime Minister Modi by a large group of Hindu Nationalists across the country.