Bric a Brac : Dark horse wins the race

YOGI Adityanath was a dark horse for UP Chief Ministership. It was all but decided that Manoj Sinha, Minister of State for Communications, would be the new Chief Minister of UP. Suddenly the rules of the game changed. For the first time, the BJP top leadership felt the heat of mandate. Union Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari had been given the responsibility for overseeing the selection of the Chief Minister. As usual, Gadkari took up ‘office’ in the five-star Taj Hotel. He reportedly even got 187 MLAs to sign their support for Sinha. Learning of this, Yogi rushed to Lucknow and he too put his “Dera” in the same hotel. It soon became clear that the Yogi pulled more weight. Home Minister Rajnath Singh was also monitoring developments; he immediately sent two of his closest aides to meet Yogi. Clearly, one Thakur was impressed by another Thakur when it was conveyed that the Chief Minister had to have saffron lineage. Amit Shah was in touch with Gadkari. A phone call was made to Manoj Sinha from Delhi, where he was informed that he was no longer in the race for the Chief Ministership. After this, Yogi got a call from Shah and was told to reach Delhi to meet him the moment he landed. Shah told him to meet Modi. By the time Yogi reached 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, Modi was about to leave for Uttarakhand to attend the oath-taking ceremony. It’s reported that the duo spoke for barely two minutes. Modi congratulated him and said: “I am giving you a huge responsibility.” With that, Modi headed off to Dehradun and the victorious Yogi to Lucknow.

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