42 Facts About Yogi Adityanath

Yogi Adityanath was born on Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht; 5 June 1972 and is an Indian Hindu monk and politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party who is serving as the 21st and current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 19 March 2017.

Yogi Adityanath is the longest serving Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who is currently running his tenure for over 6 years, surpassing Sampurnanand.

Yogi Adityanath represents Gorakhpur Urban Assembly constituency in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly since 2022 and a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council elected by the members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council from 2017 to 2022.

Yogi Adityanath is a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency, Uttar Pradesh from 1998 to 2017 before he resigned to become the Chief Minister.

Yogi Adityanath resigned from the legislative council after being elected to the legislative assembly.

Yogi Adityanath is the founder of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu nationalist organisation.

Yogi Adityanath has an image of a Hindutva nationalist and a social conservative.

Yogi Adityanath was born as Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht on 5 June 1972 in the village of Panchur, in Pauri Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh in a Rajput family.

Yogi Adityanath's late father, Anand Singh Bisht, was a forest ranger.

Yogi Adityanath was the second born in the family, among four brothers and three sisters.

Yogi Adityanath completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.

Yogi Adityanath left his home around the 1990s to join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement.

Yogi Adityanath was promoted to the rank of Mahant or high priest of the Gorakhnath Math after the death of Avaidyanath on 12 September 2014.

Yogi Adityanath was made Peethadhishwar of the Math amid traditional rituals of the Nath sect two days later.

Yogi Adityanath belongs to a specific tradition of Hindutva politics in Uttar Pradesh that can be traced back to the Mahant Digvijay Nath, who led the placing of idols in the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 22 December 1949.

Four years after Yogi Adityanath was designated Avaidyanath's successor, he was elected to the Lower House of the Indian Parliament.

However, the BJP has not let the tensions mount because Yogi Adityanath has served as a star campaigner for the party.

Yogi Adityanath's arrest led to further unrest during which several coaches of the Mumbai bound Mumbai-Gorakhpur Godan Express were burnt, allegedly by protesting Hindu Yuva Vahini activists.

When elected to the 12th Lok Sabha at age of 26, Yogi Adityanath was its youngest member.

Yogi Adityanath was elected to the Parliament from Gorakhpur for five consecutive terms.

Yogi Adityanath has had strained relations with the BJP for more than a decade.

Yogi Adityanath often derided and undermined the BJP, criticising its dilution of the Hindutva ideology.

In 2007, Yogi Adityanath threatened to field 70 candidates for the state assembly against the BJP candidates.

In 2009 Parliamentary elections, Yogi Adityanath was rumoured to have campaigned against the BJP candidates who were then defeated.

In March 2010, Yogi Adityanath was one of the several BJP MPs who defied the party whip on the Women's Reservation Bill in the Parliament.

Yogi Adityanath was a prominent campaigner for the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Yogi Adityanath imposed a blanket ban on cow-smuggling and a stay on UPPSC civil service exam results, exams and interviews until further order.

Yogi Adityanath imposed a ban on the vices of tobacco, paan and gutka in government offices across the state, and compelled officials to pledge to devote 100 hours every year for the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Since 2017 chief minister Yogi Adityanath had ordered the closing of many slaughterhouses.

Since 2018, through executive orders, CM Yogi Adityanath had closed around 200 tanneries out of a total of more than 400 that were active in Jajamau, Kanpur.

Yogi Adityanath's government was credited for making 50 megawatts of power and a 22-km-long electricity line in a record four months for the Samsung mobile plant.

Yogi Adityanath held consultations with private firms in order to increase private investment in the defense corridor project.

In September 2020, Yogi Adityanath asked his government to devise a strategy to prevent "religious conversions in the name of love", and even considered passing an ordinance for the same if needed.

On 31 October, Yogi Adityanath announced that a Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 to curb "Love Jihad" would be passed by his government.

Yogi Adityanath said the state population policy focused on efforts to increase the accessibility of contraceptive measures issued under the Family Planning Programme and provide a proper system for safe abortion.

On 10 March 2022, with the announcement of the legislative assembly results, BJP-led NDA alliance secured 273 seats with Yogi Adityanath winning his second term.

On 3 January 2016, a day after the terrorist attack on an Indian air force base in Pathankot allegedly by Pakistani terrorists, Yogi Adityanath compared Pakistan to Satan.

Yogi Adityanath had praised the then US President Donald Trump's decision to enact a ban on citizens from 7 Muslim-majority countries entering the United States and has called for India to adopt similar policies to tackle terrorism.

In 2010, when opposing the Women's Reservation Bill, Yogi Adityanath said that reservation doesn't affect women's domestic responsibilities such as childcare.

Yogi Adityanath added that if men develop feminine traits they become gods, but if women develop masculine traits they become demons.

In June 2015, Yogi Adityanath, while talking about Surya Namaskara, and Yoga said that those who want to avoid Yoga can leave Hindustan.

Yogi Adityanath "requested" those who see communalism in the Sun God to "drown themselves in the sea" or live in a dark room for the rest of their lives.