Dubai: Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister and BJP leader Yogi Adityanath has finally broke 'Kalidas’ and Noida jinxes.
Adityanath yesterday won Gorakhpur Urban seat with a massive margin of 54,858 votes. His victory comes as the BJP retained power in Uttar Pradesh.
While the Noida jinx has been a topic of discussion in political circles for decades, the Kalidas jinx has been very quietly whispered in the corridors of power in Lucknow during the election campaign, IANS reported at that time.
The UP chief minister’s official bungalow is located on Kalidas Marg - 5, Kalidas Marg, to be precise — and a look at history shows that no chief minister since 1950 has continued living here for a second consecutive term.
Though several chief ministers have enjoyed multiple terms in office, none has had the privilege of spilling into the second term while living in this bungalow.
Mashoor Ahmad, 91, who had worked as a maintenance staff during the regime of Kamlapati Tripathi in early seventies, recalled: “Even at that time, people used to murmur about the bungalow having a curse. Tripathi ji used to get ‘puja’ done at regular intervals but it is not known whether they were performed to remove the curse. It is a fact that while parties like the Congress returned to power after elections, the same chief minister did not make a comeback. Some chief ministers like N. D. Tiwari, Mulayam Singh, Mayawati and Kalyan Singh occupied this bungalow several times but never in succession.”
“According to a fable, Kalidas was once sitting on a branch of a tree on the wrong end and was sawing it. When he finally sawed through the branch, he came down with it. Similarly, chief ministers living here often tend to make mistakes that lead to their exit,” he said.
The retired officer told IANS recently that the bureaucrats had informed some chief ministers, including N D Tiwari, but they took it lightly.
“I am sure if someone had told Yogi Adityanath about this, he would have changed the name of the street,” he added.
The 5, Kalidas Marg bungalow is one of the best maintained and largest government bungalows in Lucknow.
Yogi visited Noida multiple times
Having multiple bedrooms, the bungalow has been renovated several times. Each chief minister has made additions and changed to the bungalow to suit his or her needs.
Mayawati, as chief minister renovated the Janata Darshan Hall and made many other changes and additions to the bungalow.
Also, after over three decades, Adityanath returned to power by breaking the ‘Noida jinx’, according to which any Chief Minister who visited the city loses power.
After becoming Chief Minister in 2017, Yogi Adityanath has visited Nodia multiple times to inaugurate, lay the foundation of several development projects and administrative work.
The Noida jinx was a talking point in the Uttar Pradesh power corridor after Chief Minister Veer Bahadur Singh had to step down in 1988 within a few days after his return from the city.
Former Chief Ministers Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav had avoided visiting Noida during their chief ministership. In recent times, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati visited Noida in 2007 after becoming chief minister and she lost the assembly polls in 2012. Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akshilesh Yadav also followed the trend during his five-year tenure from 2012.
During his visit to the city in January, Adityanath took a dig at Mayawati and Yadav by saying that power was more important for them so they were hesitant to visit Noida. When asked about the jinx, Noida MLA Pankaj Singh, who is currently leading, had said that Chief Minister Adityanath has personally taken care of development of the city and its people by visiting multiple times.
BJP breaks 36-yr jinx
The BJP’s comprehensive win in the UP also broke a 36-year-old jinx of the incumbent government being voted back to power in the state.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Indian National Congress had a stronghold in the 1980s as the party retained its power from 1980-88. However, the state witnessed political instability after 1988 with multiple political parties, including Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the BJP ruling the state in the 1990s.
However, BJP in 2000 again came to power by forming an alliance with the BSP and senior party Rajnath Singh was sworn in as the Chief Minister. In a major setback, the BJP could not even hold its government for a year as the BSP took back its support and broke the alliance.
Since then, the BJP could not come to power, and the state was ruled by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party separately till 2017.
