Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a monk-turned-politician, won his first-ever Assembly election by a margin of 1,03,390 from Gorakhpur Urban constituency, defeating Samajwadi Party candidate Subhawati Upendra Dutt Shukla, who secured 62,109 votes in the recently-concluded UP Assembly election.
Adityanath secured 1,65,499 votes in the elections. This is the first time that Adityanath has been elected as an MLA. Earlier, he had become the chief minister the first time after being elected as a Member of Legislative Council. When the BJP won the 2017 Assembly election, the party chose him as the chief minister.
After becoming the CM of the state, he kept 36 ministries under his direct control, including Home, Economics and Statistics, Sainik Welfare, Home Guard, Personnel and appointment, as well as Civil Defence.
Before being sworn as UP chief minister in 2017, he was Gorakhpur MP for five consecutive terms from 1998 to 2017. At 26, Adityanath was the youngest Lok Sabha MP. He is also the head priest of the Gorakhnath Math which is a Hindu temple in Gorakhpur.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always endorsed him by praising his work as UP chief minister. PM Modi coined a new slogan on "UP plus Yogi bahut hai upyogi" (UP plus Yogi is very useful). The Gorakhpur Sadar seat had also been a bastion of the BJP, which the party had never lost since 1967 since the days of the Jan Sangh.
Bucking the trend, Yogi Adityanath will be the first chief minister in the last 37 years to return to power after completing a full term in Uttar Pradesh. Adityanath is the first CM to return to power after Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh. Congress stalwart Narayan Dutt Tiwari, aka ND Tiwari, was the last chief minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh to secure consecutive terms in 1985, which makes Yogi Adityanath first chief minister in 37 years to retain power in Uttar Pradesh.
( With inputs from ANI )
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