Noida: Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes a ride in a Metro from Botanical Garden Station to Okhla Bird Sanctuary along with the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Ram Naik and the Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath and other dignitaries after its inauguration, at Noida, Uttar Pradesh on Monday. PTI Photo/PIB(PTI12_25_2017_000040B)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday praised Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for breaking the superstition that any chief minister who visits Noida does not return to the seat of power.
"Some chief ministers even change cars for this reason...If anybody thinks not going to a place will prolong their chief minister tenure and visiting a place will curtail it, such a person does not deserve to be a chief minister," Modi said after inaugurating Delhi Metro's Magenta Line here.
According to the belief among UP politicians, any chief minister who visits Noida loses power. So much so that his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav never visited the urban hub close to Delhi in his five-year tenure, preferring to launch projects and roads by remote control from Lucknow. Akhilesh even skipped the foundation stone-laying of a Delhi-Meerut Expressway.
"Due to his dress, people find it fashionable to believe that Yogi Adityanath is not modern enough but it is he who has done what chief ministers of UP did not do - he has come to Noida. Faith is important but blind faith is not desirable," Modi said.
Modi recalled that when he was the Gujarat CM, he was told about a few places where no chief ministers go "because they were inauspicious". "I was clear...I would go to all those places in my first year itself. Driven by blind faith and superstition, leaders never went to places for decades. How unfortunate is that," he said.
"Unfortunately, there were superstitions associated with Noida and in his own style, Yogi Adityanath has risen above these superstitions and come to Noida," Modi said.
As CM, Mayawati was the only UP chief minister to have gone to Noida in 2011 to inaugurate a Rs 685-crore memorial park. But she lost the 2012 state election. Before her, no chief minister dared to go to 'jinxed' city in 29 years.
Congress CM Veer Bahadur Singh visited Noida in 1988 and was ousted soon after. A similar fate awaited his successor N D Tiwari in 1989, Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1995 and Kalyan Singh in 1999.
In 2002, Rajnath Singh as CM prefered to inaugurate a flyover linking Noida and Delhi - but ensured that he stayed on Delhi's side of the border.
Undeterred Yogi spent two days before the flag-off event to sort out civic issues in Noida that came up 40 years ago close to the national capital. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was not invited to the function.
Modi said "Governance cannot happen when the dominant thought process begins with 'mera kya' (what's in it for me) and ends at 'mujhe kya' (what do I get)."