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Why I think Yogi Adityanath will succeed as Uttar Pradesh CM

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Uday Mahurkar
Uday MahurkarApr 23, 2017 | 18:53

Why I think Yogi Adityanath will succeed as Uttar Pradesh CM

Nature is a great balancer. It creates forces from time to time to redeem the situation when excesses cross a certain limit. And so was born late Vishwa Hindu Parishad supremo Ashok Singhal when forces of proselytisation converted 200 Dalits in Tamil Nadu to Islam in the early 1980s.

Nature created Singal as a counter force that checkmated the pan-Islamist forces and also gave speed to internal social reform within Hinduism, a process which was launched several years ago by figures like RSS leaders Guruji Golwalkar and Balasaheb Deoras.

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Similarly, when Muslim appeasement crossed all limits at the opening of this century, nature created Narendra Modi to teach India the meaning of true secularism. The morass of acute Muslim appeasement gave fillip to the pan-Islamist forces at the cost of moderate forces even within the minority community.

Today, Modi is out to establish a development model which is largely and sincerely committed to the BJP slogan, "Justice to all, appeasement of none."

The same applies to Uttar Pradesh and its unexpected chief minister Yogi Adityanath. When the state went to the polls, the administrative downfall following 15 years of short-sighted and ruinous rule seemed irredeemable.

Law and order was in pitiable shape and the implementation of government schemes was in shambles except in case of schemes that promised immediate votes.

Few had imagined that Yogi would be anointed CM when the BJP won. But the situation dictated so to the BJP leadership. To tackle the dark shadows of corruption and nepotism in the administration, the BJP leadership needed a strong hand with a clean image — a figure with the capacity to work 18 hours a day.

Yogi was found to be the only person having these qualities, though he came with the tag having scarred Muslims while following a line of Hindutva, which, at times, seems blind to everything else.

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And so stepped in Yogi with a fiat to right the wrongs of the past and with instructions that he will have to replace his old style, Hindutva rhetoric and follow a line based on justice for all and appeasement of none.

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The chief minister understands his responsibilities. Photo: Indiatoday.in

Upon completion of his one month in office, many from non-BJP sections across India were still asking whether Yogi would succeed.

Going by the initial indications, the 44-year-old Yogi, like Modi, is set to play a long and successful innings. He has controlled his Hindutva rhetoric, given out the impression of being a just ruler, clamped down on goonda raj and taken a series of steps in 30 days since he took oath to put the state on the track, including repairing and resurfacing the state's interior roads by June. The work on most of his announcements had begun in the right earnest.

At the end of one month, Yogi appears to be a man in command: well-versed in the art of handling the media and artful in articulating the core priorities of his governance.

Yes, his government went overboard on the issue of illicit slaughter houses, targeting small butchers instead of taking on mechanised slaughter houses to save UP’s cattle wealth.

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Perhaps, he could have taken inspiration from a respectable RSS leader of Ahmedabad, the late Neelnath Vinod, who went full steam against cow slaughter as the in-charge of Ahmedabad slaughter houses in 1970s, but was a hero to all Ahmedabad butchers when he opposed the proposal for the setting-up of mechanised slaughter houses in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation saying that it would result in butchers losing their livelihood. Vinod was also a favourite of the then RSS head Guru Golwalkar.

The UP CM has given enough proof of his firm commitment when it comes to cleaning up the augean stables. He is bound to succeed because of the two key qualities he has: he is hard-working and has an incorruptible image.

Another reason is the little known, important factor that the RSS forces yearning for an ideal state government in the country, based on the philosophy of "welfare for all but no compromise with anti-national and prosytilising forces", see in Yogi — a Hindu monk — the potential of realising their dream. So, the right thinking Hindutva forces will back him to the hilt.

The chief minister understands his responsibilities. On April 22, the Meerut police didn’t hesitate to book the local BJP MP Rajiv Lakhanpal upon a complaint that he had instigated Hindu mobs in a clash, which occurred over a Hindu procession passing through a Muslim area.

Clearly, if Yogi could prove correct Plato’s famous words, "Philosophers should be rulers in a republic", it will be the greatest victory for the Sangh Parivar. And they are right in dreaming so.

Last updated: April 23, 2017 | 19:42
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