Uttar Pradesh: Yogi breaks Noida, anti-incumbency jinxes, set to retain power

There was another interesting myth in UP's political quarters that any incumbent CM who visits Noida loses the chair. Adityanath broke that jinx too.

Lucknow: Yogi Adityanath, the right-wing seer turned politician is set to retain power in Uttar Pradesh breaking a 36 year old jinx that incumbent governments lost in the state. The incumbent UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led the BJP to poll victory, riding a high-decibel election campaign, with thrust on the development agenda and Hindutva ideology. Yogi Adityanath won Gorakhpur Urban assembly seat by a huge margin of over one lakh votes to his nearest rival Subhawati Upendra Dutt Shukla of Samajwadi Party. The incumbent UP CM got over 65 per cent of votes as ruling BJP headed towards a big win in Uttar Pradesh.

The Noida jinx

There was another interesting myth in UP's political quarters that any incumbent CM who visits Noida loses the chair. Adityanath broke that jinx too. Noida, Dadri and Jewar Assembly constituencies fall in the district. A myth was nurtured for nearly three decades that any chief minister of Uttar Pradesh who visited Noida in Gautam Buddh Nagar district was doomed to go out of power. In recent history, Mayawati, who took oath as the UP CM in March 2007, had visited Noida in November that year to attend the wedding of close aide Satish Mishra’s relative. However, the BSP supremo’s bold move, which was seen as a myth-buster at the time, was followed by her ouster from power from the state in 2012.

Mayawati hails from Badalpur village in Greater Noida. Her predecessors Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, BJP’s Rajnath Singh and Kalyan Singh had also avoided visiting Noida during their chief ministership. Malayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav, who became the CM in 2012, had continued the trend of avoiding in-person visit to Noida, often dubbed as the show window to Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav did not attend the Asian Development Bank Summit organised in Noida, when the then prime minister Manmohan Singh was the chief guest.

The “Noida jinx” took root after chief minister Veer Bahadur Singh had to step down in June 1988, a few days after he returned from Noida. Yogi Adityanath, who had stormed to power in UP in 2017, has visited Noida nearly a dozen times since becoming the UP chief minister and launched the Noida Metro, among other development projects in the region over the years.

In January this year, Adityanath visited Gautam Buddh Nagar to review the COVID-19 pandemic situation and hit out at Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav and said coming here becomes important for him as the chief ministers who preceded him always hesitated about visiting the district. “They were afraid. Their own life and political power were the only things important for them. But they had no agenda for economic prosperity, health and well-being of the people of the state and hence they were hesitant about visiting Gautam Buddh Nagar,” Adityanath had said.

Modi-Yogi factor

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the BJP's campaign from the outset, first by fully backing the Chief Minister and afterwards by leading an intense campaign in the state. According to the latest data of the Election Commission of India on the trends of the counting of the votes, the BJP has crossed the majority mark of 202 Assembly seats in the state while leading in more than 245 constituencies, whereas the Samajwadi Party is leading on 122 seats and Congress leading only in one constituency.

Moreover, the exit poll results had also predicted that the monk turned politician, Yogi Adityanath is on course to retain power in Uttar Pradesh for the second time.

Past elections

In Uttar Pradesh, the Indian National Congress had a stronghold in the 1980s as the party retained its power from 1980-88. However, the state witnessed political instability after 1988 with multiple political parties, including Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the BJP ruling the state in the 1990s.

However, BJP in 2000 again came to power by forming an alliance with the BSP and senior party Rajnath Singh was sworn in as the Chief Minister. In a major setback, the BJP could not even hold its government for a year as the BSP took back its support and broke the alliance. Since then, the BJP could not come to power, and the state was ruled by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party separately till 2017.

The BJP had swept 2017 polls in Uttar Pradesh, winning more than 300 seats and senior party leader Yogi Adityanath was sworn in as the Chief Minister. The electorally-crucial state witnessed a multi-cornered contest with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vying for the popular mandate and creating history this time.

Intensive campaigning

In Uttar Pradesh, the political parties held intensive electoral campaigns, but BJP and SP garnered most of the eyeballs. Congress also hit the ground hard, with the party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's vivacious campaigns. However, BSP seemed to lag a little behind its rivals. The BJP fielded its top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in the campaigning to bolster the party's support base. During the campaigns, Adityanath, who is in the electoral fray from Gorakhpur Urban constituency, got a new name "Baba Bulldozer".

"Bulldozer" is a reference to the action taken by the Yogi government to vacate illegally occupied land and properties using the Bulldozer machine. Moreover, PM Modi himself was deeply involved in the BJP campaigning for the UP polls and ensured that there was no factionalism in the party. The Prime Minister heaped praises on the UP CM Yogi Adityanath for the development works done in the state and coined a new slogan on "UP plus Yogi bahut hai upyogi (UP plus Yogi is very useful)".

PM Modi held rallies in Prayagraj, Kaushambi, Bahraich, Amethi, and a massive roadshow in Varanasi which attracted a huge crowd. On the other hand, Samajwadi Party also held numerous campaigns to challenge the Yogi Adityanath led government whereas Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi also ran a campaign "Ladki hoon, Ladd Sakti hoon" and gave 40 percent seats to women. Assembly elections were held in Uttar Pradesh from February 10 to March 7 in seven phases to elect all 403 members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly.