Why BJP chose Yogi Adityanath as UP chief minister
The installation of five-time parliamentarian Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh has come a surprise for the media mainly due to his controversial remarks targeting the minority community. What came as an even bigger surprise is that Adityanath, who has represented Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency in eastern part of UP since 1998, occupies the top post in the state without any previous experience as an administrator. It is not that the BJP did not have leaders with administrative track record for the post of UP chief minister. There were persons like federal ministers like Rajnath Singh and Manoj Sinha. And yet the mantle fell on Aditynath. In political circles, Adityanath’s appointment as chief minister is being viewed as a powerful signal to the electorate in UP ahead of the national elections in 2019. The BJP is convinced that the consolidation of votes in recent assembly elections in the state was no flash in the pan as was evident in Lok Sabha polls in 2014. This is a trend which the party believes has come here to stay at least till the 2019 national elections in a state where the politics of erstwhile ruling parties, Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, thrived on pandering to caste and religious fault lines.
By choosing Adityanath to govern India’s largest state, the top BJP leadership has sent across a strong message that it will not be apologetic about its Hindu nationalist credentials and that the country must be ready to expect the unexpected from the party. If BJP finds that the political message of having Adityanath as chief minister works till the next parliamentary polls, it’s fine. But if development take a back seat in the next two years, there is always scope for a mid-course correction because there will be still three years left for the next assembly elections in the state.