Yogi Adityanath was a 22-year-old science graduate when he took deekhsha from his guru, BJP MP Mahant Avaidyanath, in February 1994 and was declared his successor in Gorakhnath Mandir. Few in Gorakhpur would have thought that the young man would one day reach a stature that would extend across the Poorvanchal region, where he is known as ?Mahantji?. Today he has gone beyond that, too, and is in demand across Uttar Pradesh as the star campaigner for Saturday?s bypolls.
The campaign saw him promising to stop ?love jihad? and defying denial of permission to hold a rally; he has been slapped an Election Commission notice and has had an FIR ordered against him.
The image of an aggressive pro-Hindutva leader came about shortly after the Gorakhpur mandir ceremony. In 1995, at Muslim-majority Bayalisgawan village some 25 km from Gorakhpur city, some Muslims allegedly robbed a Hindu man in broad daylight. Yogi reached the market with his supporters and it is said that police took action against the accused only after his intervention.
He has won five Lok Sabha elections from Gorakhpur, sometimes without the support of the BJP ? he has set up a parallel power centre, Hindu Yuva Vahini. In the 2012 assembly elections, he fielded his own candidates against the BJP?s. The patch-up happened following a poor performance by the BJP in those polls.
By the time the 2014 general elections came, the party had acknowledged Yogi as the man to go to in eastern UP. He was the only BJP candidate from UP besides Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh to campaign for anyone other than himself. The BJP provided him a helicopter to travel to several Muslim-dominated districts. ?Yogi?s pro-Hindtuva speeches led to polarisation and added votes for the BJP in various seats,? said a BJP leader.
This led to demands for the campaigner in the current elections, and the extension of his domain. The party has appointed him in a panel of three leaders and given him charge of leading the campaign in the state. Almost every BJP candidate told The Indian Express they wanted Yogi to campaign because his address would unite the Hindu vote.
Of the 11 assembly seats voting, Thakurdwara and Saharanpur were already communally charged because of recent clashes. Yogi started his campaign from Noida and Bijnor. Raising an issue many BJP leaders have been silent on, he said in Hamirpur that conversion of Hindu girls by duping them could be stopped only by a BJP government. He recalled an incident from 2013 when the UP police stopped him from going to Jhansi for a jalabhishek programme at a Shiv temple in a Muslim-dominated area. ?That temple will be freed soon and I will go on the jalabhishek,? he said.
In Noida last week, his comments earned him the EC notice. He wound up his campaign at a Muslim-dominated area in Lucknow East, the meeting that hadn?t got permission. ?The Lucknow meeting was scheduled at the end to allow Yogiji spread his pro-Hindutva message across the state from the state capital,? said a BJP leader.
As Yogi concluded his speech, focused against the state government?s alleged Muslim-appeasement policies, party workers chanted: ?UP me rehna hai to Yogi, Yogi kehna hai.?