Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the head priest of the Gorakhnath temple.

HIGHLIGHTS
- 1 UP CM Adityanath is the head priest of the Gorakhnath temple
- 2 The BJP’s Maya Tripathi lost in the ward where the temple is located
- 3 The BJP did win the mayoral seat in Gorakhpur
In Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s bastion Gorakhpur, the ruling BJP’s Maya Tripathi lost ward number 68 to an independent Muslim candidate, Nadira Khatoon.
The famous Gorakhnath Temple, of which Yogi is the Mahant, is situated in this ward.
The setback to Yogi in his own backyard is only an aberration to an otherwise stunning victory he has ensured for the BJP in the UP civic polls, the Chief Minister’s first major test since assuming power in March this year.
“I fought on the agenda of development and people made me win,” Khatoon told news agency ANI. When asked if she will support Adityanath’s BJP, she said, “If needed, I will do it.”
In a related development – and a big boost for Yogi to compensate for the Gorakhpur loss – the BJP won Amethi, which happens to be the Lok Sabha constituency of soon-to-be Congress president-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi.
“The Congress wiped out in Amethi,” Adityanath said in a press conference today after the trends showed the BJP set to win 14 of 16 municipal corporations.
Adityanath called it a “historic win” and attributed it to “Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s vision and BJP chief Amit Shah’s guidance”.
“The BJP will now look forward to achieve the goal of 100 per cent success in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” Adityanath said. In 2014, his party had won 71 of the 80 seats in the state.
Adityanath happens to be the head priest of that temple, and was a five-time MP from the Lok Sabha constituency of Gorakhpur.
But it wasn’t all bad news: The BJP did win mayoral seats in Gorakhpur and in six other cities and towns.*
Adityanath said a press conference this afternoon that the Uttar Pradesh civic body polls would be an eye-opener for people comparing the it with the upcoming Assembly polls in Gujarat, a BJP stronghold.
Votes are being counted in 75 Uttar Pradesh districts after a three-phase election to 652 urban local bodies took place last month.
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December 4, 2017 at 5:21 pm
The victory of muslim candidate in the constituency indicate that the popularity of CM is in doubt.