Yogi Adityanath on Friday, March 25, took oath as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for the second term in a mega ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top BJP leaders. Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak were also sworn in as Deputy Chief Ministers.
Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel administered the oath to Adityanath in a ceremony also attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP national president J P Nadda. Adityanath was unanimously elected the BJP legislature party leader in UP on Thursday, after which he staked claim to form the government.
The swearing-in ceremony was held at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium, the venue having the capacity to accommodate 50,000 people. The BJP-led alliance had won 273 of 403 seats in the just-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. While the BJP got 255 seats, its allies Nishad Party and the Apna Dal (S) bagged 18.
Born Ajay Singh Bisht in Pauri Garhwal's Panchur (now Uttarakhand), on June 5, 1972, Adityanath left home in 1990 to join the campaign to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath of the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur. After Avaidyanath's death in 2014, he took over as the head of the Gorakhnath `math', a post he still holds and makes frequent trips to the eastern UP town. In Gorakhpur.
Adityanath was an unexpected pick by the BJP for the chief minister's post after the party scored a landslide win in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. A poster boy for Hindutva, saffron-robed Adityanath was considered a rabble-rouser and often accused of making provocative remarks. This time round, his appointment as the CM wasn't much of a surprise. During the assembly poll campaign, BJP bigwigs hailed the success of Adityanath-Narendra Modi double-engine' government in the state over the past five years.
Home Minister Amit Shah even said Adityanath needed to be back as CM in 2022 if the party sought to return to power at the Union government in 2024. With the Bharatiya Janata Party returning to power, the monk-politician has consolidated his place in the organisation.