EXCLUSIVE: Yogi Adityanath's six months in La La Land

Sanjay Bhatnagar

Lucknow: Probably, Yogi Adityanath had little idea about the vagaries of this onerous task as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister when he said unpretentiously that he possessed all the qualities the CM needed to have.

Ironically, his innocuous sounding statement, made even before the state assembly polls were over, has consistently been under challenge with so many questions instead of answers came upfront at the time Yogi completed six months in power.

Otto von Bismarck once famously said 'politics is an art of possible' but what he did not say that the administration is science of impossible. It comes truer in the case of Uttar Pradesh with 21 crore of population, strange caste configurations and sky-rocketted aspirations specially after Bharatiya Janata Party regained power in UP with a gargantuan majority of 325 in the assembly of 403.

Honeymoon is over, Yogi ji. Here comes the time of reckoning where the ruling dispensation in UP is found lacking. It was immediately after Yogi took oath as 21st CM of UP, the administrative naivety came to fore instantaneously with rather immature handling of the issues of ban of beef, anti-romeo squad and sudden spurt in crime coupled with few caste conflicts.

In case of Yogi, never his intentions remained under question but the prompt decision making, the quick action against the erring government functionaries and confidence of senior bureaucracy were the areas which were under the cloud on many subject matters.

BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani had coined the new term for political lexicon 'feel good factor'. The governments in the present era are run on the basis of people's perception, largely and loosely made more prominent, rightly or wrongly, due to onslaught of social media and web activities, compiled with 'feel god factor'. Yogi government lacked here badly.

The perception about the governance in UP hovered around the fact that delivery has been poor, bureaucracy is status-quoist as ever and political machinery is dodgy as before. Integrity of Yogi is impeccable, without any doubt, but then what about the perception about his cabinet colleagues? Again , the perceptions may be deceiving but they are there and remained there all through six months of current regime.

May be the political cauldron has overcome the practicality and the ground realities but then politics is an art of possible , if not you have to make it Yogi ji. If the perceptions or misconceptions prevailing about you being handicapped by the Central leadership, which looks rather too far-fetched, and the senior bureaucracy is non-cooperative ,it is your duty to dispel these from the word go. Let confusion does not prevail at all.

Yes, law and order has been a major challenge in the state. Some pro-active actions,at least in the western part of Uttar Pradesh, has brought in some semblance of improvement but the corruption at police station level is cause of even more undoing.

Yogi ji, by now you must have realised that beside having all the qualities, a CM needed to have theoretically, are bound to put at test practically. Uttar Pradesh is too complexed a state to rule and when it comes to cater to the national politics, it has a huge potentiality as well as responsibility.

Also , some are slow starters. Never mind Mr CM. You still have more than four years but remember 2019 comes in between and this concern is not ours but your party's. Wishing you a rosy journey ahead.