Yogi Adityanath to take oath as UP CM on March 25

New Delhi, Mar 18: Uttar Pradesh CM-designate Yogi Adityanath is likely to take oath as the Chief Minister of the state on March 25 at 4 pm, sources close to news agency ANI informed on Friday.

The BJP registered a thumping victory in the recently-concluded UP elections, winning 255 seats in the 403-member assembly which is a feat achieved by no other party in the last three decades as no party had got consecutive terms.

Yogi Adityanath was an unexpected pick for the chief minister's post after the BJP scored a landslide win in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. A poster boy for Hindutva, saffron-robed Adityanath was considered a firebrand and often accused of making provocative remarks against Muslims.

Born Ajay Singh Bisht in Pauri Garhwal's Panchur (now Uttarakhand), on June 5, 1972, Adityanath left home in 1990 to join the campaign to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath of the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur.

After Avaidyanath's death in 2014, he took over as the head of the Gorakhnath math', a post he still holds and makes frequent trip to the eastern UP town. He was not averse to taking on the BJP then, and founded his own band of volunteers called the Hindu Yuva Vahini.

Adityanath went to school in his native village and later completed his bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University.

He had entered politics on the directions of his guru in 1998 and at 28 became the youngest Lok Sabha member, winning from Gorakhpur. He went on the represent the parliamentary seat four more times till he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 19, 2017.

As CM, he took decisions that confirmed his image as a Hindutva mascot. Early in his term, he banned illegal slaughterhouses and the police cracked down on cow slaughter.

His government brought an ordinance and later a bill against religious conversion through force or deceit, a move that also seemed to target interfaith marriages. Other BJP-ruled states followed the UP example, coming up with their versions of the law.

Briefly, last year, there was speculation that the BJP wanted to replace Adityanath as chief minister. But the rumours died down with top leaders saying that he needed to be back as CM in 2022 if the party sought to return to power at the Centre in 2024. Party leaders hailed the Adityanath-Narendra Modi double-engine' government in the state.

The BJP's 2022 assembly election win may have further consolidated his stock in the party.

Adityanath has been blamed by some and hailed by others for adopting strong-arm tactics to fight crime. Bulldozers , used to raze illegal buildings, have figured repeatedly in campaign speeches. Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) were crushed ruthlessly, and protesters asked to pay for damage to government property.

Opposition parties slammed his government over its handling of law and order, alleging that it followed a "thoko niti", or a fake encounter policy. Officials deny the allegation.

During this campaign, he has also been accused of polarisation of the state's two major communities.

His has talked about an 80-20 split of votes, which many thought referred to the Hindu-Muslim ratio. He has claimed that people who say abba jaan benefitted during the Samajwadi Party's term in office, when there were power cuts on Diwali but uninterrupted electricity supply during Eid. PTI