Yogi Adityanath is only the second Uttar Pradesh chief minister to contest an Assembly election from Gorakhpur. The first time, it did not end well.
Gorakhpur is a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the home turf of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Gorakhpur, an important centre in eastern Uttar Pradesh or Purvanchal, is the seat of Gorakhnath Dham or Math, which is headed by Yogi Adityanath. The Math became the political centre of Gorakhpur during the time of Yogi Adityanath’s guru Mahant Avaidyanath.
Mahant Avaidyanath won five assembly elections from a seat in Gorakhpur. He represented the Maniram assembly constituency from the Gorakhpur district in 1962, 1967, 1969, 1974 and 1977.
Mahant Avaidyanath’s guru Mahant Digvijay Nath was the Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur. He passed away in 1969, necessitating a Lok Sabha bypoll in Gorakhpur. Mahant Avaidyanath contested the bypoll and went to the Lok Sabha in early 1970.
Following this, he resigned from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh saw a change of chief minister intervened by an 18-day President’s Rule. Tribhuvan Narain Singh, a leader of Congress (O) after Indira Gandhi-engineered split of the Indian National Congress in 1969, took charge.
Tribhuvan Narain Singh was not a member of Uttar Pradesh Assembly or Legislative Council when he became chief minister in October 1970. The resignation by Mahant Avaidyanath offered him a chance to get elected to Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Mahant Avaidyanath was supporting the Tribhuvan Narain Singh government, a multiparty coalition.
The loss in election forced Tribhuvan Narain Singh to resign as Uttar Pradesh chief minister in April 1971. This is the only instance when a sitting chief minister of Uttar Pradesh contested election from a Gorakhpur seat.
Yogi Adityanath’s guru Mahant Avaidyanath was the Gorakhpur’s Lok Sabha MP from 1989 to 1998. Yogi Adityanath won five consecutive Lok Sabha elections from Gorakhpur from 1998 to 2014. He resigned from the Lok Sabha after he was appointed Uttar Pradesh chief minister in 2017.
