How Yogi Adityanath treads the fine line between populism and reform

A year on, the UP Chief Minister is on treacherous bureaucratic terrain

Yogi Adityanath — who completes his first year as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on March 19 — has spent the last 12 months sizing up his potential challengers, consolidating and expanding his turf, balancing Hindutva and caste interests, homing in on governance, and scouring the state’s polarised bureaucracy and police to build a team of loyalists to administer through them. 

Adityanath’s spokespersons showcased an event and a policy measure as the “stellar achievements” of his first year in the office. Between them, the “achievements” encompass the space-straddling “development” and “hard-as-nails governance”. 

The recent investors’ jamboree had the government and