Yogi Adityanath is going to become the Chief Minister of the country’s largest state Uttar Pradesh for the second time. He will take oath on March 25 at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow in the presence of all the celebrities including PM Narendra Modi. The preparations for the swearing-in are almost complete. The state government is leaving no stone unturned to make Yogi’s coronation special. Yogi’s name was not even in the initial pictures when the BJP got a thumping majority in the 2017 assembly elections. The names of many leaders like Manoj Sinha were being counted in the race for CM. Later, the BJP leadership surprised everyone by handing over the throne to Yogi Adityanath.
Two orders were given as soon as I took over the chair: When Yogi Adityanath became the CM, he made two changes immediately. First- Products like paan, gutkha and tobacco were banned in government offices. Started with my office. Second- For such officers and employees who used to come late or leave earlier, it was made mandatory for them to follow the working hours. Noted writer Shantanu Gupta writes in Yogi Adityanath’s biography ‘The Monk Who Became Chief Minister’, ‘As soon as he took the throne, Yogi ordered strict adherence to the ban working hours on paan-tobacco in government offices’.
Meetings used to start from 7 in the morning: After becoming the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath followed the same routine in Lucknow as he used to do in Gorakhnath Math. He would wake up at 3 in the morning. After performing daily rituals and worship, the round of meetings would start from 7 in the morning. In the initial phase, there were also reports of displeasure in a section of the bureaucracy regarding this matter. Many officers started complaining.
During an interview on ‘Aaj Tak’, when Yogi was asked that ‘Many bureaucrats complain that you start the meeting from 7 am, but there is no fixed time to end’. It’s 12-1 o’clock in the night. To this Yogi Adityanath replied, ‘This is my loyalty towards work. This was my routine in Gorakhpur as well. There was a cowshed…there was a farm…there was a temple, but there is nothing like it here (Lucknow). I have full responsibility towards the people of the state and want to give maximum time to them.
No time to end the meeting: Shantanu Gupta writes in his book that after becoming CM for the first time, Yogi Adityanath decided that he would understand the working of all departments and ministries in the first month. It was decided that all the departments/ministries would give their presentations. Dinesh Sharna, who was the Deputy CM in the Yogi government, had told in an interview that the timing of the presentation meeting was fixed at 6 pm, but no time was fixed for the end. Sometimes it would end at 11 and sometimes at 12. Sometimes it was pulled even further.