After one week of suspense as to who would be the new Chief Minister of India’s largest and most populous state Uttar Pradesh, BJP chose to go with five-time MP from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath. This came as a rude shock to members of Lutyens, who were expecting a ‘moderate’ like Rajnath Singh or Manoj Sinha to be named CM. Despite the fact that Yogi Adityanath was always one of the frontrunners for the top post, most did not expect him to make the final cut.
Who is Yogi Adityanath?
Born as Ajay Singh Bisht in the year 1972, he has a degree in Mathematics. He was mentored by the chief priest of the Gorakhnath temple Mahant Avaidyanath and was later promoted to the rank of a Mahant while being named the successor of Mahant Avaidyanath. Four years after that, he was elected to the lower house of the parliament in the year 1998 and since then, he has won four more Lok Sabha elections from Gorakhpur. Yogi Adityanath is seen as a firebrand leader and has made some controversial statements in the past. From mentioning that he would turn UP into a Hindu Rashtra, comparing Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan to Hafiz Saeed, his criticism of Mother Teresa, his stand on Love Jehad , his statement that a Hindu man’s death would result in ten Muslim men’s death, Yogi has been quite open about his orientation to the Hindutva cause. If one looks at the other side, Yogi is a popular leader in UP and has worked towards the development of his constituency.
As soon as news broke out that Yogi Adityanath would be the next Chief Minister of UP, the liberals and members of the mainstream media lost their mind.
Barkha Dutt was one of the first few people to spew venom with a series of tweets claiming that the fringe is now mainstream. On predictable lines, she started talking about interviewing people who said they wouldn’t have voted for the BJP had Yogi been projected as the CM face. She then went on to say that vikas has been thrown to the dustbin and Hindutva would rule UP.
Rajdeep Sardesai was not far behind. As soon as news broke out, he mentioned that BJP is confusing a majority mandate for a majoritarian one and democracy is in deep danger.
Rana Ayyub went on to claim that serious reforms are needed in Hinduism as a leader like Yogi has made it to the top position in UP and the day won’t be far when Sadhvi Pragya would become the CM of Maharashtra.
Former Jammu & Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah mocked the current CM Mehbooba Mufti for aligning with a party that has elected a leader who spoke about raping dead bodies of Muslim women. It must be mentioned here that this disgusting and insensitive statement was not made by Yogi Adityanath but by one of his supporters.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, the Congress spokesperson, mentioned that if BJP does not have a capable candidate to be CM, they must put Modi’s slippers in the CM chair as it has happened before in UP, an obvious reference to the Ramayana.
Likewise, all the warriors of the liberal cause got their much awaited opportunity to criticize the PM, Amit Shah and the RSS.
Let us now come to the facts. There is no denying that Yogi Adityanath has been a motor mouth leader of the BJP and in the past, has said things that he probably should not have. Statements like killing ten Muslims for every Hindu death are not ones to be made by responsible leaders. Now that he has been democratically elected as the Chief Minister of UP, his focus must be ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’ and he must aim to fulfill all the promises that are made in the election manifesto. But let us also look at the double standards of the liberals.
When the former PM Manmohan Singh made a statement in 2009 that minorities in India have the first rights to the resources of the country, why was there no anger or criticism? Why should the Hindus be treated as second class citizens in their own country? Why do we have this ‘taken for granted’ approach towards the Hindus?
Why is the mainstream media not criticizing Mamata Banerjee for making life hell for Hindus in West Bengal? In fact, some of the mainstream media members laud her for her continuous and tireless tirade against PM Modi.
In the state of Kerala, we have RSS workers being killed on a regular basis by CPM goons. We have hardly seen the media criticizing Pinarayi Vijayan for these murders. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, with schemes like Shaadi Bhagya, has been indulging in minority appeasement since the Congress government came to power. How many mainstream media members have spoken against these schemes?
When Farooq Abdullah said that nobody will beg Kashmiri Pandits to return to Kashmir, where was the outrage?
There are numerous such examples. The point is, when Hindus are at the receiving end of appeasement politics, as has been the case on numerous occasions, the Lutyens brigade chooses to look the other way in silence. But now that we have a saffron firebrand leader as the CM of the most populous state, the same brigade is crying foul. Muslim bashing is not the answer to Muslim appeasement, but why do they stay silent when government after government has gone out of the way to appease Muslims and has treated the Hindus with contempt?
To conclude, Yogi Adityanath as CM is going to have his task cut out, as far as managing the mainstream media is concerned. Even without having spent a single day in office as CM, the mainstream media and the Lutyens brigade has declared that Muslims in UP are going to find it difficult in the times ahead. There would be no surprise if riots are instigated by these members and Yogi would be blamed for it. We have seen such similar incidents in the past, notably the Delhi church attacks. Muslims from Gorakhpur are actually celebrating Yogi’s rise as CM, but despite that Yogi Adityanath is going to continuously be demonized by the liberals even if he works tirelessly towards the development of UP.
But one must thank Yogi Adityanath for winning the race for UP CM and exposing the hollowness, two facedness of these so called liberals of Indian society.