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Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Friday. The second tenure of the Yogi Adityanath government took off from the “Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium” in Lucknow on Friday as the chief minister and his ministerial colleagues were sworn in by Governor Anandiben Patel.
Though the sporting arena is seen as one of the major achievements of the first Adityanath government, it took three governments to get it built.
The project was conceptualised by the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) towards the end of its tenure in 2012. The stadium’s foundation stone was laid by Akhilesh Yadav during his time as chief minister and most of the work on the sporting arena was done in the five years of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government he led. At the time, it was known as the “Ekana International Cricket Stadium”.
However, the BJP gave the stadium, which the government claims is the third-largest stadium in India, its final shape after coming to power in 2017. The following year, on November 6, Chief Minister Adityanath inaugurated it and the ruling party renamed it in honour of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The stadium, where several international matches have been held, has a capacity to seat about 50,000 people. But for the inauguration seating arrangements were made on the ground too, expanding the stadium’s seating capacity to 75,000. For the event, the BJP painted its lotus symbol at the centre of the stadium and another image of a lotus was placed in front of the dais.
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