The article claims BJP’s Uttar Pradesh strategy ahead of assembly polls may involve reducing Yogi Adityanath’s individual prominence and using collective leadership. It cites statements by state BJP chief Pankaj Chaudhury and discusses speculation over internal party dynamics.

Tough Days Ahead For CM Yogi As UP Elections Draw Closer | AI

Yogi Adityanath, the larger-than-life saffron-clad monk Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, is apparently being cut to size by his own BJP party high command. There are indications that he may not be the face or mascot of crucial assembly elections looming barely six months away in India’s politically most important state. Already, efforts are afoot with the approval of the ruling party big wigs in New Delhi to dismantle the pedestal constructed by vast publicity funds elevating Yogi as an invincible emperor of Lucknow.

The latest illustration of efforts to shrink Adityanath’s image is a public declaration this month by the centrally appointed Uttar Pradesh party chief, Pankaj Chaudhury, that the coming state polls would not be fought pitching the current Chief Minister as the new incumbent but under a collective leadership spearheaded by the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and other senior state leaders, including Chaudhury himself, with Yogi as just one of them. He had made a similar statement less than two months ago.

Significantly, the new party chief was declared by the BJP high command last December almost overnight, reportedly, without the Chief Minister’s knowledge. While the ostensible reason for appointing the OBC Kurmi leader was his electorally influential caste that had abandoned the BJP in its 2024 parliamentary poll setback in the state, Yogi’s own Kurmi nominee, Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh, was pointedly ignored. Interestingly, Chaudhry hails from the same Gorakhpur region as Adityanath, and the seven-time elected veteran BJP parliamentarian has never been close to him.

Within a month the annoyed Chief Minister hit back by surprisingly criticising the Special Intensive Exercise (SIR exercise) by the Election Commission in Uttar Pradesh while addressing party workers in Lucknow, declaring that of the 40 million voters deleted from the electoral roll, nearly 90 per cent were BJP supporters. He is perhaps the only senior party leader to have publicly criticised the controversial move by the central government-sponsored exercise. Ironically, Adityanath was speaking at a meeting to announce the name of the new party chief.

`;

There is also speculation in political circles whether the latest diminishing of Yogi was linked to the prominent coverage of the saffron-clad monk in the London Financial Times last month that carried an article titled “ Monk who could succeed Modi” as well as an interview with him. The several laudatory passages in the article describing the Chief Minister, albeit tempered by references to his controversial personality, as well as the suggestion that he was the most likely heir to Prime Minister Modi, could have raised hackles in the top BJP leadership.

Interestingly, the remarkable boost to Yogi’s stature in one of the most prestigious international publications has led to conjecture as to whether this had anything to do with the massive spending by the Chief Minister from state coffers on building his image. According to recently revealed figures, the Uttar Pradesh administration spent Rs 6,811.94 crore in eight years of Yogi rule from 2017 to 2025, a staggering Rs 23.2 crore per day outspending by far. Even the huge publicity expenses of the Modi government at the centre, estimated at Rs 6,000 crore over 11 years, average about Rs 1.5 crore per day.

On the surface, there is an uneasy truce between the party high command and the Yogi camp. But tensions are likely to mount, as the time for assembly ticket distribution comes nearer. It would be in the Chief Minister’s interest to have as many loyalist candidates as possible, while the state party chief, acting under orders from New Delhi, would do his utmost to do exactly the opposite.

Adityanath does not have to contend only with Chaudhry but also BJP national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Vinod Tawde, appointed last month as the party’s Uttar Pradesh in-charge. Hailing from Maharashtra, the veteran party organiser is known to be a key hatchet man of Amit Shah and likely to report directly to the powerful Home Minister. Clearly, it is part of a coordinated effort to prevent the Chief Minister from wielding much clout in the preparations for the elections and the choice of the new leader if the ruling party secures another term.

Yet, while Yogi is clearly beleaguered, dismantling his personality cult just before a make-or-break assembly poll could jeopardise the ruling party’s own electoral prospects. The Chief Minister may have more enemies than friends in his own party but is certainly the tallest BJP leader in Uttar Pradesh and is reported to have a larger personal constituency than even the Prime Minister in the core Hindutva base in the state. In recent months, he has turned increasingly communal, pressing his claim to be the fiercest advocate of crushing minorities in his home state to take the lead in making India a Hindu state.

There is also the question of whether the RSS leadership is ready to go along with sidelining a chief minister whom Nagpur had foisted on Uttar Pradesh in 2017, overriding Modi’s own candidate. It is also not known how Yogi himself would react to being denied his claim, and perhaps the megalomaniac obsession of remaining the incumbent on the Lucknow throne, that his rightful place is to ultimately ascend to that in New Delhi. Some political pundits feel that Adityanath would tamely fall in line if the party high command ousted him, much like his predecessor Kalyan Singh did several decades ago. But unlike Singh, Yogi is an unpredictable, hot-headed monk who does not come originally from either the BJP or the Sangh Parivar and may not subscribe to its discipline.

Most importantly, without a chief ministerial face and simultaneous downsizing of a figure synonymous for two decades with the BJP juggernaut in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling party is put at a disadvantage. In the aftermath of the Cockroach protests rudely puncturing the balloon of the ruling party and its Supreme Leader, and amid signs of the rising popularity of LoP Rahul Gandhi, the visible fractures in the saffron juggernaut may make winning a must-win electoral battle a daunting task.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Add As a

Trusted Source