One often wonders and marvels at the will and commitment of UP Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath to maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in the state. Some forces at the instance of their masters sitting inside and outside the country were hell-bent on creating disturbances and communal tensions in Uttar Pradesh at the time of Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti but thanks to the alacrity and firmness of the Yogi government not even one untoward incident was reported from any part of the state. These forces got frustrated and they gave vent to their designs in other states by staging communal riots.
When the Varanasi court this month itself directed for the preservation of Shivling in the Gyanvapi and for making alternative arrangements for the Waju (ablutions) of the permitted number of Namajis, it was feared that the state would be engulfed in extreme turbulence, but nothing happened in any part of the state despite extreme provocations by the likes of Owaisi and others. A few days earlier, the Advocate Commissioners were prevented from surveying the Gyanvapi premises by the troublemakers but when Yogi made it clear that no nuisance would be brooked and they would be dealt with an iron fist, nothing happened. The message reached in time to those who were planning to stoke communal tensions in different districts of the state.
Was it possible in any other dispensation? The obvious answer is an emphatic NO. During the regime of different governments, Uttar Pradesh had seen the worst communal riots. Mayawati was certainly a shade better than others, but the Yogi government is incomparable, and it is head and shoulder above any government of the state at any point in time. Although former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav wanted to deride the Yogi government by nicknaming as the government of the Bulldozer Baba, that name proved to be a blessing in disguise for the people of the state.
The state has suffered a lot, as it has been fed up with the goondaism and casteism of some political parties. Government contracts used to be awarded only to those who belonged to a particular party or persons. Officers used to bend backwards to please their political masters. The Police Sub-Inspectors had become more powerful than Superintendents of Police because they were in the good books of their political bosses. It is an open secret that corruption was at its peak during the time of Mulayam Singh Yadav (Akhilesh Yadav included) and Mayawati. Mulayam Singh and his son had patronised some journalists, who shamelessly sang their paeans. These journalists were openly indulging in brokering. It must be stated, in all fairness, that the Yogi government has restored the people’s faith in the rule of law.