Despite a massive mandate, BJP continues to be at pains to explain the sudden elevation of five-time Lok Sabha MP as the CM of India's most populous state. Senior leaders in the party continue to speculate about the move. Senior BJP ministers have said that Yogi Adityanath was the choice of the elected members and BJP did not decide the name before the meeting.

Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu who had flown to Uttar Pradesh to settle the matter told WION, "No name was given to me by the leadership. When I went to Lucknow and spoke to elected MLAs, I realised that the sentiment was in favour of Yogi Adityanath.”

Sources said that it was after this interaction that Mr Naidu spoke to several leaders including BJP president Amit Shah, Bhupendra Yadav, Om Mathur and Ram Lal. It was during this meeting, the proposal to appoint Yogi as the chief minister was moved by Suresh Khanna and signed by 9 other members including Dara Singh, SP Baghel and SP Sahi. Naidu also said that it was Adityanath’s idea to have two deputy chief ministers to which the party had no issues. The BJP for the last 48 hours, has been trying to give the impression that Yogi Adityanath’s elevation should be seen in this context only.

However, sources in the BJP give a different picture all together. Sources say that BJP leadership was very much aware of Adityanath’s political muscle as a senior BJP cabinet minister from Maharashtra had already briefed Amit Shah that Yogi enjoys support of 187 MLAs and 90 percent of the BJP MLAs from eastern Uttar Pradesh were refusing to accept any person other than Adityanath.

Sources admit that top leadership of the BJP concluded much before the Lucknow meeting that bickering post appointment could affect the mandate, hence decided to lend support to Yogi Adityanath. Sources also confirmed that Yogi on his part remained silent and did not threaten anyone. So, Yogi Adityanath was picked by the central leadership of the BJP because the ground response for Yogi was too strong to be ignored. Once the BJP leadership accepted the reality, they asked Yogi to accept two deputies, a condition he agreed on.

It is for this reason BJP has not been able to come up with a concrete reply on Adityanath’s elevation as they would have to accept that party was caught unaware of Yogi’s popular support and had no option but to go with the popular sentiment.