{"id":357106,"date":"2025-10-18T19:21:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=357106"},"modified":"2025-10-18T19:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:51:35","slug":"star-campaigner-or-star-divider-akhilesh-believes-adityanath-is-a-divider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/star-campaigner-or-star-divider-akhilesh-believes-adityanath-is-a-divider\/","title":{"rendered":"Star campaigner&#8217; or &#8216;star divider&#8217;-Akhilesh believes Adityanath is a divider"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"654\" height=\"1017\" src=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2022\/03\/Yogi_Adityanath.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-336359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2022\/03\/Yogi_Adityanath.jpg 654w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2022\/03\/Yogi_Adityanath-193x300.jpg 193w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2022\/03\/Yogi_Adityanath-270x420.jpg 270w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Shri Yogi Adityanath meeting the President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on February 10, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In a veiled attack on Yogi Adityanath, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister was going to poll-bound Bihar not as a BJP star campaigner but as a &#8220;star divider.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;People would not accept &#8216;communal figures&#8217;,&#8221; he argued&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adityanath is one of the BJP&#8217;s star campaigners for Bihar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He has gone to Bihar not as a star campaigner but as a star divider. The people of Bihar will not accept him. People can never accept communal figures,&#8221; Yadav was quoted as saying, alluding to Adityanath at a press conference, accusing the BJP of following a &#8220;divide and rule&#8221; policy because it is scared of PDA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the SP parlance, the acronym &#8220;PDA&#8221; stands for Pichde (Backward Classes), Dalit, and Alpsankhyak (minorities). Yadav also criticised the state government over worsening traffic and civic conditions in Uttar Pradesh&#8217;s cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adityanath is a crowd-puller and also a deeply polarizing figure in Indian politics primarily because of his dual role as a Hindu monk (Mahant of the Gorakhnath Math) and a powerful political leader. He is considered divisive because his way of governance and rhetoric appeals to his base in ways that alienate a large section of critics, particularly those from minority communities and liberal backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His supporters hail him as a &#8220;tough administrator&#8221; who has dramatically improved law and order in Uttar Pradesh, a state previously known for high crime and corruption. They point to infrastructure projects, a crackdown on crime, and successful social welfare schemes as evidence of his effectiveness. For many Hindus, he is an icon of the Hindutva ideology, a leader dedicated to protecting and promoting Hindu culture and interests with integrity and dedication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conversely, critics accuse him of being a hardline Hindu nationalist. His government\u2019s policies, like highly publicized &#8220;bulldozer&#8221; demolitions of properties belonging to alleged criminals (often Muslims), are viewed by critics as politically motivated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a veiled attack on Yogi Adityanath, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister was going to poll-bound Bihar not as a BJP star campaigner but as a &#8220;star divider.&#8221; &#8220;People would not accept &#8216;communal figures&#8217;,&#8221; he argued&nbsp; Adityanath is one of the BJP&#8217;s star campaigners for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":336359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2915,1801,2015],"tags":[15940,17301,16188,17992,15788,16765],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":357107,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357106\/revisions\/357107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/336359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}