History has been made in Uttar Pradesh with the BJP’s phenomenal victory. Though the party has won 255 seats (57 down from its 2017 tally), there has been a rise in its vote share which has gone up from 39.67% to 41.3%.
While some said that no party in the state has ever managed to get a consecutive second term, others including the Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav himself peddled superstition that a sitting CM who visits Noida won’t be able to come back to power.
And who can forget all the rhetoric about corpses floating in Ganga during the second wave of the pandemic!
Breaking all the jinxes and busting all the rhetorics, CM Yogi has managed to come back to power in a resounding victory.
A lot has been said and written about Yogi Adityanath. He has been demonized as a ‘militant monk’ and eulogized as a ‘bulldozer baba’.
But what is it that has catapulted him to rule the massive of state of Uttar Pradesh once again?
Well, the answer is simple.
People trust CM Yogi.
And why do they trust him?
There are many reasons.
Law & Order
One of the main reasons for which people have rewarded the Yogi government has been bringing the law & order situation of the state under control.
Whenever Samajwadi Party had been in power, blood flowed on the streets of Uttar Pradesh. Goons with guns roamed around the streets in broad-day light. Uttar Pradesh was dreaded as a lawless state where criminals thrived and ruled. Rapes, murders, kidnapping, and gang wars, were an everyday affair.
In short, Uttar Pradesh had become synonymous with Gunda Raj during the rule of the father-son duo.
But the arrival of Yogi Raj saw ruthless crackdown on criminals. Those who roamed with streets blazing guns, surrendered voluntarily to the police fearing encounter. Rape cases have fallen by 10% since 2013 and the number of murders have gone down by 25%. Not a single communal riot broke out in the last five years, unlike the earlier period when Uttar Pradesh saw its worst ever communal riot in its history during the Muzaffarnagar Riots in 2013 that left 62 dead and thousands displaced. Even if sporadic events did take during the anti-CAA and anti-farm laws protests, the rioters were dealt appropriately.
This ironhand approach of dealing with criminals has earned goodwill among people especially women.
Connectivity
For long, roads, electricity, access to healthcare and education remained out of bounds for people living in remote parts of the state.
Ever since CM Yogi came to power, Uttar Pradesh has seen massive development on all fronts especially on infrastructure.
The hitherto neglected regions like Bundelkhand is undergoing a massive transformation under the leadership of CM Yogi and PM Modi.
Back in 2017, when CM Yogi took over the reigns, Uttar Pradesh had just 2 functional expressways – the Yamuna Expressway connecting Agra with Delhi and the Lucknow-Agra Expressway. These two expressways took 10 years to complete, from 2007 to 2017.
Though the Purvanchal Expressway was conceived during the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Govt, it was there just on paper. It was only in the latter half of 2018 that actual work began on the expressway and it was completed in a record time of just 3 years!
This happened because of a radical paradigm shift in work culture that was brought to the UP administration by CM Yogi Adityanath.
Today, the Purvanchal Expressway, Ganga Expressway, Bundelkhand Expressway, Gorakhpur Link Expressway are spanning across the length and breadth of the state and is opening up new economic horizons bringing development to the unreached parts. The establishment of the defence corridor has all the more given a boost for the industrial development of the state.
It is not just roads but the Yogi government also given a massive boost for air connectivity. From 1947 to 2017, there were just 2 airports in the state with full fledged commercial operations. But in just a span of five years, eight airports were made functional in the state with construction of the country’s largest airport in Noida underway.
Delivery
Another crucial factor that has played a big role is the double-engine government of Modi-Yogi and its ability to provide last mile delivery of welfare schemes.
1.95 crore toilets have been built under Swachh Bharat. 29 lakh houses have been constructed under PM Awas Yojana. 26.6 lakh tap water connections have been provided under Har Ghar Jal since the start of the scheme in 2019. More than 1.4 crore LPG connections have been provided under Ujjwala Yojana.
All this without the poor having to grease the hands of middlemen, thanks to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) initiative.
For the first time, the people of UP have seen government schemes actually reach them.
Cultural Revivalism
Last but not the least. By being unapologetically Hindu and wearing his identity on the sleeve, CM Yogi has stirred up the Hindu-ness that was for long buried deep under people’s hearts and minds. The buliding of Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor and the steadfast construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has resulted in enhancing CM Yogi’s image along with that of PM Modi’s.
It is primarily because of these factors that people of Uttar Pradesh have reposed their faith in the Yogi Govt.
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.