Yogi Adityanath: Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

Yogi Adityanath was born in 1972 in the village of Panchur, in Pauri Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand).
He completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.
He left his home around the 1990s to join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement.
Around that time, he also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath, the chief of the Gorakhnath Math.
Mahant Avaidyanath was leading the Ayodhya Ram temple movement at that time.
Adityanath was promoted to the rank of Mahant or high priest of the Gorakhnath Math after the death of Avaidyanath on 12 September 2014.
He was made Peethadhishwar (Head Seer) of the Math amid traditional rituals of the Nath sect two days later.
After his first electoral win, Adityanath started his own youth organisation Hindu Yuva Vahini.
He switched to the BJP in 1991, but nevertheless maintained significant autonomy.
Adityanath was elected to the Lower House of the Indian Parliament (the Lok Sabha) in 1998.
He was promoted to the rank of Mahant or high priest of the Gorakhnath Math after the death of Avaidyanath on 12 September 2014.
He was made Peethadhishwar (Head Seer) of the Math amid traditional rituals of the Nath sect two days later.
Adityanath was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 2017 and re-elected in 2022.
He is the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Yogi Adityanath is a Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and has been a prominent campaigner for the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections.
He was appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 18 March 2017, after the BJP won the assembly elections.
Yogi Adityanath is a star campaigner for the BJP and has encouraged Madhesi leaders to oppose Maoism in Nepal.
He has had strained relations with the BJP for more than a decade and has often derided and undermined the BJP.
He established his own independent power base in Eastern Uttar Pradesh with the support of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and the Gorakhnath Math.
When his voice was not heard, he revolted by fielding candidates against the official BJP candidates.
The most prominent example was the fielding of Radha Mohan Das Agarwal from Gorakhpur on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket in 2002, who then defeated BJP Cabinet minister, Shiv Pratap Shukla by a wide margin.
In 2009 Parliamentary elections, Adityanath was rumoured to have campaigned against the BJP candidates who were then defeated.
Despite his periodic revolts, Yogi Adityanath has been kept in good humour by the RSS and the BJP leaders.
He was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 18 March 2017.
After becoming Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath kept around 36 ministries under his direct control.
In his first cabinet meeting, held on 4 April 2017, the decision was taken to forgive loans to nearly 87 lakh (8,700,000) small and marginal farmers of Uttar Pradesh, amounting to ₹363.59 billion (US$4.6 billion).
For India's Independence Day celebrations in 2017, his government singled out Muslim religious schools, requiring them to provide video evidence that their students had sung the Indian national anthem.
In 2017, his government ordered withdrawal of around 20,000 "politically motivated" cases, including those against himself and other politicians.
Since 2017 chief minister Adityanath had ordered the closing of many slaughterhouses. As a direct consequence, the tanneries that sourced raw leather from the slaughterhouses were impacted. Several tanneries were also ordered to be shut down. The tannery industry was estimated to be worth 50,0000 crore ₹ in 2017. The industry directly or indirectly gave employment to more than 10 lakh people.
Since 2018, through executive orders, CM Adityanath had closed around 200 tanneries out of a total of more than 400 that were active in Jajamau, Kanpur.
In the first 10 months of his first term, he conducted four police encounters per day.
National human rights commission issued a notice to the state government and a bench of three judges from the Supreme Court of India warned and issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government in this case.
Committee Against Assault on Journalists found that 138 cases of persecution of journalists were registered under Yogi Adityanath's term in Uttar Pradesh between 2017 and February 2022.
Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, was elected in March 2018 with the support of the BJP.
He has been credited with improving the state's infrastructure, including the construction of a world's largest smartphone manufacturing factory and the installation of 50 megawatts of power in a record four months.
His government has also been credited with making efforts to reduce the population growth in the state.
In 2020, he proposed an ordinance to prevent religious conversions in the name of love, if needed.
In March 2022, he was re-elected with the support of the BJP, becoming the first chief minister to return to power after completing a full 5-year term in office.
He is the third chief minister, in the history of Uttar Pradesh's political history, to complete a full 5-year term as the chief minister of the state.