Everyone has their journey of life but only a few of them stays with people until the end. Yogi Adityanath, this name encapsulates a spiritual ascetic, an astute politician, fiery orator, reformer, pro-development administrator, dedicated CM, and a nationalist. Though the kind of firebrand leader he is known by many, people are hardly aware of his legendary journey that turned a common man named Ajay Singh Bisht into a fierce Mahant Yogi Adityanath.
From Ajay Singh Bisht to Yogi Adityanath
Ajay Singh Bisht was pursuing Masters of Science (MSc) in Mathematics in Rishikesh but mainly because of his interest in ‘Ram Janmabhoomi Movement’ he left his studies. Influenced by the Mahant Avaidyanath Ji, he left his village without telling anyone and went to Gorakhpur in 1993. On the auspicious occasion of ‘Basant Panchami,’ on 15 February 1994, Mahant Avaidyanath Ji appointed Ajay as a Nath Panth Yogi, and this is how Ajay Singh Bisht became Yogi Adityanath.
Yogi- The youngest legislature of his time
For the first time in 1998, Yogi Adityanath was elected as the Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur constituency. At the age of 26, he became MP, the youngest legislator at that time. He succeeded Mahant Avaidyanath who had chosen his disciple to succeed him on the Lok Sabha constituency of Gorakhpur. With continuous public support and adulation of the masses, he continued to win the constituency again and again with a huge margin. In 2014, he won by a huge margin of 1,42,309 votes. He proved to be as diligent in discharging his administrative duties as he was diligent as a Yogi. As an MP, he used to spend most of his MP fund allotted to him in the development of his constituency. He raised the issues related to the welfare of the people of not just his constituency but that of the entire populace of Uttar Pradesh.
Yogi arrested for Hindu inclinations on false charges
A Hindu youth, Raj Kumar Agrahari was attacked by a mob, allegedly dragging him out of a police jeep in Gorakhpur following a minor altercation in 2007. Agrahari later died of his wounds. After Agrahari died, even though the district magistrate advised him not to visit the site, fearing it would stoke tensions, Yogi disobeyed the magistrate and travelled to the site with a group of his followers and started a non-violent dharna on the site.
However, allegedly inflammatory speeches were made, and somebody set fire to a nearby mazar. A curfew was imposed by the local police, and Yogi Adityanath was arrested by the UP police for breaching it. Yogi Adityanath was booked under various sections of the IPC and sent to jail, along with 150 of his supporters following which the situation went out of hand with rabble-rousers who went about with looting and vagrancy in the town causing great damage and loss of limbs to all sides.
However, in 2017, the Allahabad High Court was told by the state’s Advocate-General that the Hindutva leader Yogi Adityanath cannot be tried by the court.
Yogi Adityanath became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon. 18th of March 2017. The new cabinet of Uttar Pradesh would be sworn in the next day, following the BJP’s thumping election victory. While the people were anticipating that India’s largest state would be led by none other than Manoj Sinha, the Modi Government knew what people actually needed. And yes, Yogi Adityanath was made the Chief Minister of the state.
Read more: Yogi Adityanath Wins again: High Court dismisses petition against UP CM
The young, smiling, saffron-clad man, barely one meter sixty centimetres tall, standing between two of the most powerful men in India and waving to the crowds, is an image that will be etched in the country’s memory forever.
Read more: At 5’4”, Yogi Adityanath is a billion hopes tall
No other politician, apart from Prime Minister Modi himself in 2014, has generated the level of hope and excitement among the average Indian as Yogi has. The saffron-clad chief minister has managed to be in the news almost every day since he took over, and it has almost always been good news. As the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections are nearing, BJP is all set to sweep the state and Yogi Adityanath, supposedly, will continue to rule the state.