Voices Pushpesh Pant Ravi Shankar Ajai Sahni Anu Aggarwal Debashis Chatterjee mata amritanandamayi THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment July 28 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Bold Monk Yogi Adityanath is in the crosshairs after the BJP’s dismal showing in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. The wily Mahant of Gorakhpur is no pushover for a scapegoat. J By Namita Bajpai une 4, 2024. As the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha votes were being counted, it became obvious the lotus was wilting with the passage of the day The . 400-paar dream had gone bust. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath went into a huddle with his trusted aides; the results were a big jolt to both the BJP and him. His enemies at the state and in New Delhi would be baying for his blood. His prestige is at stake in the state elections three-and-a-half years away The first . instruction the CM issued to senior bureaucrats was to fill up existing vacancies in state jobs pronto. Two days later, he held a follow-up meeting with officers from different commissions and recruitment boards like UPPCL, UPSC Subordinate City Selection Commission, and the Police Recruitment and Promotion Board. Earlier in the day, he had called a meeting of ministers to assess the work done by each department. “A lobby is active against Yogi to provoke party leaders and allies to target the state government and paint its image as bleak. Any naive person can see it,” says a senior BJP leader. Yogi Adityanath is no slacker. He has formed a 16-member group of ministers to oversee the bypoll preparations. A key responsibility of his team is to address the concerns of the party workers. Yogi has also finalised his itinerary to meet groups of public representatives on a daily basis for feedback and address their concerns. “Maurya is just a pawn in the battle between Shah and Yogi. It is affecting the state. They were elected by the people of the state to work for them and now they are wasting time and resources in settling personal scores leaving the people to suffer.” Ajay Rai, UP Congress chief Why would BJP destabilise its most powerful and effective chief minister? According to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s conspiracy theory Yogi is the last remaining , threat to Amit Shah’s candidature for the PM’s post after Modi. “If they form the government, Yogi Adityanath will be removed from the CM’s post within two months,” Kejriwal had warned. However, the astute monk is BJP’s best vote catcher after Modi, and enjoys full support from the RSS and its sister outfits. A meeting scheduled in Lucknow by the RSS to make peace between the warring factions was cancelled when the Sangh did not wish to be seen as interfering directly in party politics; the news of the meeting is being denied by senior BJP netas. FROM PATRON TO NEMESIS Ironically, it was Shah who backed Yogi as chief minister in 2017. Yogi’s career turnaround happened in 2013 when Shah took charge of UP BJP. One of his visits was to Gorakhpur Mutt where he assured Yogi of his value to the party. Soon Yogi was made in-charge of UP Assembly bypolls held after the 2014 LS elections. The results were not up to the mark. Shah came forward to shield Yogi and kept him out of party engagements. However, as 2017 state assembly approached, Yogi was invited to attend key meetings to discuss ticket distribution. In a rare appearance in Lucknow in January 2017, Yogi was also on the dais for the launch of BJP’s manifesto. With Shah at the helm of affairs, the rise in Yogi’s stature was palpable. However, this is also a fact that when he took over as UP CM in March, 2017, Yogi hardly had any interaction with the state BJP cadre. His politics was relegated to Gorakhpur and Delhi, as he was one of the busiest MPs known for raising issues of his constituency. The genesis for the current crisis lies in the political develop- ments in Delhi and Lucknow in early 2017. Five days after BJP’s landslide victory of 312 of 403 seats in UP Assembly elections, five-time MP Yogi Adityanath was called by Amit Shah for a jaw-jaw. The BJP parliamentary board’s meeting to decide UP’s new CM ended inconclusively. It was left to Shah to take the final call. In the race were state chief Keshav Maurya and Union Minister Manoj Sinha, now J&K’s LG. Shah reportedly offered Yogi a Union cabinet berth that was met with a polite ‘no’. “Getting a ministry when the government was already nearly three years into its tenure was not something I desired,” he reportedly said. Shah didn’t mind. In parting, he told Yogi that the soft-spoken sanyasi was in the shortlist for the top job and PM Modi would take a final decision. Unaware of the developments, Maurya was distributing laddoos outside Parliament to celebrate BJP’s big wins in UP and Uttarakhand. Shah was also present. Since ‘Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri?’ was the hottest topic in Lucknow, reporters questioned Shah. The answer, though flattering, sealed Maurya’s fate. Gesturing towards Maurya, he said on camera: “Jise Keshav chahein (whosoever Keshav wants).” Soon enough, Maurya developed chest pain and had to be hospitalised. Although he was discharged the same day, it was obvious the BJP’s powerful OBC face was out of the race. A secret phone call by Shah at 6.45 pm on March 17, 2017, inviting Yogi to come to Delhi was a turning point: ‘Laut aaiye’ (Please come back). There was no flight or train to Delhi at that time. A private plane was sent the next morning. Yogi landed in Delhi Turn to page 2 It remains to be seen how the Modi-Shah duo deal with Yogi The New Drawing Board I f Yogi Adityanath seems to be under siege, the situation is not new to him. He has been a lone ranger right from the beginning of his political career. Even in the past seven years of his tenure as the CM, he had been put against nasty narratives—both real and imaginary—on several occasions. Yogi always held his ground tightly. He is unlikely to be doing anything different this time. On his part, though, he has swiftly started the ‘course correction’ by instructing his team to address the issues of party workers. Besides, taking the forthcoming Assembly bypolls to 10 seats as a chance for redemption of 2024 Lok Sabha loss. He has hit the ground running to start the preparations. He formed his own 16-member team of ministers, even before the state BJP unit could do it, to oversee preparations for these bypolls. His actions speak louder than him. Tightening his grip further on governance, he will be nastier with the corrupt. In order to counter the narrative of his detractors, Yogi will beat his image of being ‘over dependent’ on bureaucracy. He will stress grievance redressal of party cadre, lawmakers by increasing his accessibility to them besides lending a patient ear to allies as well. Yogi summed up his strategic options while responding to Arvind Kejriwal’s claims floated during the LS poll campaign, by reiterating that he would not think twice before quitting power for the sake of party ideology and commitment.