Yogi Adityanath - 'The best Performing CM'

Yogi Adityanath, whose state handed the BJP a handsome victory in the Lok Sabha Election, unseats Mamata Banerjee from the top position

- Ajit Kumar Jha

WHEN IT COMES TO ambition and performance, there’s no stopping Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath, adjudged the ‘Best Performing Chief Minister’ in the country in the latest India today Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll. Adityanath, who secured 20 per cent of the votes, was ranked second in the last MOTN poll (January 2019), where he shared the honours with Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal.

An early setback in his political career—the BJP’s defeat in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in March 2018, exactly a year after he became chief minister—had opened Adityanath’s eyes to, in his own words, his “overconfidence and inability to gauge the strength of the BSP-SP alliance”. Having won the Gorakhpur seat five times in a row in the past, he took the loss to heart.