Yogi Adityanath's image as a mass leader may have been the clincher for his anointment

Saffron robe-clad Yogi Adityanath, fifth-term Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur, becomes the leader of 312 BJP MLAs in Uttar Pradesh.

He is arguably the biggest mass leader the BJP has at the state level to rival Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, the previous two chief ministers. A bitter campaigner against what is called the politics of appeasement in the state, Adityanath has been the most sought-after campaigner for BJP candidates after the top leaders — Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh — during the recently concluded assembly elections.

However, Adityanath’s saffron robes and association with staunch saffron politics could become an excuse for a political realignment in UP where both the parties with entrenched identity politics — Akhilesh’s SP and Mayawati’s BSP — have suffered massive and successive electoral setbacks, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the 2017 assembly elections.

The only time the SP and the BSP joined ranks was in the 1993 assembly elections at the peak of saffron politics after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.

Yogi, as he is popularly known, will be the first chief minister from eastern Uttar Pradesh since Rajnath Singh in 2002. The UP chief minister’s post has swung between people from western UP — Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and Akhilesh — since 2002.

Given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also a Lok Sabha MP from Varanasi in eastern UP, the move is a clever move by the BJP to consolidate its position in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

BJP sources suggest that his “Yogi image” will make him acceptable to western UP and also take care of the various sections which voted for the BJP during the assembly elections.

Also read: Yogi Adityanath picked to develop Uttar Pradesh

Also read: We do not believe in politics of appeasement: Yogi Adityanath

Also read: Yogi Adityanath: The man who renamed Ali Nagar as Arya Nagar

Also read: Trivendra Rawat Sworn in as Uttarakhand CM

Given the fact that Adityanath comes from the Thakur community — although he was born and brought up in Uttarakhand — the party has decided to deftly balance the social equations by installing a Brahmin, Dinesh Sharma, and an OBC, Keshav Prasad Maurya, as deputy chief ministers to assist him in governance.

For optics, the resolution to elect Adityanath as CM was seconded by several OBC leaders — Dara Singh Chauhan, SPS Baghel, among others — to suggest that his election has the blessings of non-Yadav OBCs which are said to have voted in large numbers for the BJP.

Though Adityanath’s election as Uttar Pradesh CM may have set many tongues wagging in political circles, given his image as a champion of Hindutva politics, BJP insiders confide that his name was seriously considered for projection as CM candidate ahead of the election before the party decided to go faceless.