Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday came in for praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for shrugging off a superstition that any chief minister who visits Noida does not assume the high office again.
Those who entertain such superstitions have no right to be the chief minister, Modi said in Noida. Adityanath visited Noida twice in three days rubbishing a widely believed myth in UP’s political and bureaucratic circles that a chief minister visiting Noida would face problems retaining his or her post.
In the city to inaugurate Delhi Metro’s magenta line, Modi pointed to the saffron robed Adityanath and said that looking at his dress, the CM appeared to be superstitious, but had actually shown that he had the courage to break superstitions. A priest-turned-politician, Adityanath, could be seen smiling as Modi lavished praise.
The Prime Minister said that Noida was not the only place to which superstitions had attached themselves. Recalling his days as the chief minister of Gujarat, Modi said there were 6 to 7 places in the state where no chief minister went out of the fear that whoever does so would lose his seat. “I ignored this and visited all such places,” Modi said and pointing that he remained Gujarat CM for nearly 20 years.
In the modern scientific world there is no place for superstition, the prime minister asserted. Significantly, Adityanath’s chief ministerial visits to Noida came eight years after the last by the then CM Mayawati.
In the ensuing election Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) lost and her successor Akhilesh Yadav did not visit Noida. Several chief ministers in the past have not visited Noida, something attributed to the “jinx” about the city.
