Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s tenure has been eventful for the past four-and-a-half years. He has earned bouquets for his development initiatives, but has also received brickbats for his controversial decisions. With a few months left for the next assembly elections, his government has been facing a huge challenge—the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. In an exclusive interview with Ruben Banerjee and Giridhar Jha, he explains how his government dealt with the situation and exudes confidence that the BJP will return to power in 2022. Excerpts:
The second wave of COVID-19 has wreaked havoc. Was your government prepared?
We have successfully implemented the model of 3Ts (test, trace and treat), coupled with partial curfew and aggressive vaccination to deal with the situation. It has brought positive results. Our caseload is down by almost 70 per cent from the peak on April 23 when we had 310,700 cases. The recovery rate...
