SAFFRON SUPREMACY

Yogi Adityanath rides an unbroken winning streak as the country’s most popular chief minister, while Himanta Biswa Sarma emerges as the best-performing within home state

- By KAUSHIK DEKA

Over the past decade, India's political landscape has been defined by a powerful convergence of Hindu nationalist rhetoric and display with claims of administrative efficiency, most visibly in the BJP-ruled states.

This fusion has allowed the party’s most ideologically assertive chief ministers to dominate public imagination in ways their counterparts on the opposite end of the spectrum have struggled to match. The latest INDIA TODAY Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll, by examining Indian federal politics through the lens of state leadership, sheds light on this dynamic. It reveals how voters across diverse states weigh governance, performance and ideology in shaping their perceptions.

Two distinct questions structured the exercise. First, respondents across the country were asked who they considered their favourite CM in India. This is a perception ranking, reflecting visibility, national resonance and image beyond state borders. Second, each state’s respondents were asked to judge their own CM’s performance, a more grounded, local assessment, anchored in everyday governance.

At the apex of national popularity stands Yogi Adityanath, the saffron-robed CM of Uttar Pradesh. His 36 per cent approval rating signifies the mainstreaming of muscular Hindu nationalism that once occupied the margins of Indian politics. Yogi's position, virtually unchanged over 11 consecutive surveys, suggests that his mix of religious symbolism, development and promises of law and order resonates far beyond India’s most populous state. What makes this noteworthy is that he maintains this national prominence while simultaneously securing a respectable 40.4 per cent satisfaction rating within UP itself, a feat that eludes most other nationally recognised CMs.