UP Assembly Elections 2022: Yogi Adityanath breaks the ‘Noida jinx’; what is it and how did former CMs fall for it?

The Bharatiya Janata Party has registered a massive win in Uttar Pradesh. It’s looking at a tally of 260-plus, as counting for 2022 Assembly elections draws to a close. In India’s most populous state, it’s been a Yogi Adityanath show all the way. And there was nothing that could stop him – not even Noida.

The BJP’s numbers in the state are emphatic and even Adityanath scored big, winning the Gorakhpur Urban constituency by over one lakh votes. Finally, comes a leader who has broken the much-talked-about “Noida jinx”. What exactly is it and what did the UP CM do to have gotten rid of it?

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For nearly three decades, there existed a belief that any chief minister in the state who visited Noida in Gautam Buddha Nagar invited ill-luck and was destined to be voted out of power. It’s a superstition that was further fueled by Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav. Commenting on Modi and Adityanath’s repeated visits to Noida, the former CM had said in January, “We are to witness the outcome of visiting Noida. And this time the both of them have been to Noida. We will see the outcome.”

The PM and the CM have visited Noida several times to launch development projects, including Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line. During his visit to the Gautam Buddh Nagar’s Government Institute of Medical Sciences in January 2022, Adityanath had said, “The district is of prime importance as it is close to the National Capital and there is frequent movement of people across the state borders. My predecessors used to shy away from visiting this district as their own life and position of power were more important to them than the people of this area. However, I am thankful that I got the opportunity to visit this district many times.”

The jinx has now been broken, but how did the misconception start in the first place?

The life of a superstition

In 1988, the then chief minister Vir Bahadur Singh had visited Noida New Okhla Industrial Development Authority in Gautam Buddh Nagar. Days later, he was forced to resign. His successor Narayan Dutt Tiwari lost power in the 1989 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. He also reportedly visited the city during his tenure as CM.

These losses were somehow linked to Noida and the superstition gained a life of its own. The CMs that followed tried to avoid visiting the city.

Mayawati, who took oath as the UP CM in March 2007, had visited Noida to attend a wedding of her close aide Satish Mishra’s relative. In 2012, she lost the election, reports PTI.

When SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power, he consciously did not visit Noida; even BJP’s Rajnath Singh and Kalyan Singh believed in the superstition.

With inputs from agencies

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