Since Independence, almost every CM has faced allegations of promoting and posting people of their own caste to prime positions in the government, and Yogi Adityanath is no exception. He has also been widely criticized for being extremely casteist. However, what is different is that he is not defensive. Just before completing his first five-year tenure, on being asked whether he felt hurt on being labelled a casteist, he said, ‘I am not hurt. It is not a crime to be born in a Rajput family. This is one caste in the country in which even God was born, not once but many times. One should take pride in one’s caste, and I am proud to be a Rajput.’ Yogi Adityanath is fifth person from Rajput (or Thakur) caste on the post.
However, most of the criticism Yogi Adityanath’s government faced was from the Brahmins, who were among the largest beneficiaries of the government and the ruling party, including prime postings for officials of this caste. Crackdown on alleged criminals like Vijay Mishra of Bhadohi attracted criticism from Brahmins and even from some BJP leaders who agreed with their sentiments. But the BJP had lost nothing politically. When some BJP MLAs started asking questions about how many Brahmins were killed, the former Union MoS in the Congress government, Jitin Prasada, while launching the Brahmin Chetna Parishad on 6 July 2020, stated that ‘[s]ince the Adityanath government came to power, the crimes and killings against Brahmins have increased manifold. They are being killed, and they aren’t being given any justice. At the moment, data tells us that Brahmin killings are disproportionately high, more than the other castes.’ This was despite the fact that the then chief secretary R.K. Tiwari, principal secretary home Awanish Kumar Awasthi, and director general of police Hitesh Chandra Awasthy were all Brahmins. Later, Jitin Prasada joined BJP on 9 June 2021 and was sworn in as a prominent minister in Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet, and fielded as a BJP candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls from Pilibhit, a seat earlier represented by Varun Gandhi. But some cases of alleged fake encounters are disturbing. A classic example is that of Jhansi’s Pushpendra Yadav, who was allegedly killed in a fake encounter on 9 October 2019. An FIR of murder was registered only after the Allahabad High Court passed an order on 12 September 2022. But while waiting for justice, his wife Shivangi Yadav died of suicide on 29 March 2023.
In its first five-year tenure, the Yogi Adityanath government also initiated infrastructure projects like the Ganga Expressway, Bundelkhand Expressway and Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor, and completed others that were conceived during the previous governments. But anger among the youth towards his government was high because recruitment for government jobs was stuck or delayed, and there were frequent paper leaks in examinations.10 There was also the allegation of violation of reservation rules in recruitments. Until March 2024, the Yogi Adityanath government has established five state universities in UP.
Many meetings were organized in Lucknow and Delhi in May and June 2021 among the BJP and RSS leaders at different levels. At one point of time, it was certain that Yogi Adityanath was going to be replaced. The central leadership was concerned about the assembly polls, which were only nine months away. Amid his ongoing tussle with Deputy CM Maurya, after intervention from some RSS leaders, he made a surprise visit to Maurya’s residence on 22 June 2021 in an attempt to mend fences. Before Yogi Adityanath could be convinced about the change of leadership, the BJP leadership, assessing the situation, realized that if he was removed, the party would only suffer. The dust settled when PM Modi came to Lucknow to address the 56th Conference of Director Generals of Police and Inspector Generals of Police of states/union territories, attended by heads of central armed police forces and central police organizations, on 20–21 November 2021. After meeting the PM at Raj Bhavan, where Modi was staying, Yogi Adityanath tweeted a picture on 21 November in which PM Modi was on a stroll with his hand on Yogi Adityanath’s shoulder. He shared a poem with it:
Ham nikal pade hain pran karke
Apna tan-man arpan karke
Jid hai ek surya ugana hai
Ambar se uncha jaana hai
Ek bharat naya banana hai
[We have started a journey with a commitment, sacrificing
our body and mind, to bring a sunrise; have to go high
above the sky and make a new India.]
This put to rest all the recent rumours and made it clear that the party could not afford to replace Yogi Adityanath. He moved ahead, and the 2022 assembly polls were contested with him as the face of the BJP in UP.
Seven-phase assembly polls were announced on 8 January 2022. A high-stakes election campaign was unleashed, and Yogi Adityanath had an upper hand this time as he left his opponents in the party far behind in popularity and acceptability. Unlike in 2017, when the BJP had not projected anyone as the CM, in 2022, Yogi Adityanath was the face of the party for the chair of CM. However, in order to keep Brahmins with the BJP, he hardly mentioned his action against Vikas Dubey in his public meetings.
This excerpt from At The Heart Of Power: The Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh by Shyamlal Yadav has been published with permission from Rupa Publications India.