Yogi first to retain power in UP in 37 years

fought assembly elections, the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP trounced its principal rival Samajwadi Party left far behind. The BJP crossed the majority mark in the initial rounds itself. As per the latest Election Commission trends available on all 403 seats, by afternoon the BJP was leading comfortably. Adityanath was nearly 70,000 votes ahead of his nearest contestant from the Gorakhpur (Sadar) seat, while his arch-rival Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav led from his constituency Karhal against the BJP. Adityanath is close to setting a record since this is for the first time after 1985, a political party is returning to power with a thumping majority in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The monk-turned-politician created history as the first chief minister ever in Uttar Pradesh to retain after a five-year term. In the past, four chief ministers had also returned to power in Uttar Pradesh but none after a full five-year term. Narayan Dutt Tiwari was the last chief minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh to win consecutive terms in 1985. While there are multiple factors behind the BJP’s victory in the Hindi heartland that has major ramification on national politics, the results have broadly shown that voters chose to rise above caste considerations. The saffron party in 2017 had bagged 312 seats — it was the biggest majority for any party in the state since 1980. Ahead of the 2022, the 49-year-old also broke the Noida jinx. When Congress’ Narain Dutt Tiwari was re-elected in 1985 he was riding the wave of sympathyfollowing the assassination of the then Prime minister Indira Gandhi. Adityanath will be the only chief minister of the BJP who will return to power with full majority. He visited Noida at least 10 times during his five years tenure. Before this, Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh were BJP chief ministers of the state but they could not get consecutive second terms. In 1980 too Congress won 309 seats to grab power in UP. But after 1985, the downfall of Congress started and in 1989 polls, it lost to Janata Dal and thereafter it could not grab power in the state.