The club of bachelor chief ministers in the country has just expanded.

PTI

Priest-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath, 44, who was today sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, now joins Trivendra Singh Rawat, 56, (Uttarakhand), M L Khattar, 62 ,(Haryana), Sarbananda Sonowal, 54, (Assam) and 70-year-old BJD chief Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) in the league of singletons running state governments.

BCCL

The controversial mascot of hard-line Hindutva, Yogi Adityanath, is also the first male bachelor chief minister of the country's most populous state.

Interestingly, barring Patnaik and 62-year-old TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal,) all the chief ministers, who are unencumbered by a family, are from the BJP.

PTI

Among the current crop of top politicians, Rahul Gandhi, 46, the scion of the Congress party, BSP chief Mayawati, 61, and senior BJP leader Uma Bharti, 57, are unmarried.

Singlehood can even become an article of pride for politicians.

PTI

"I'm of low caste, I'm unmarried, and I'm yours," Mayawati has often proclaimed in her election rallies.

Among the other chief ministers, Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Manohar Parrikar in Goa, are widowers.

Like many RSS activists, Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, decided against tying the knot.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a BJP stalwart, never married. He used to underline his bachelor status in public meetings saying that since he has no family, there is no question of nepotism or family rule. He became the Prime Minister of the country thrice.

Undoubtedly the most notable among all unmarried public figures was Dr A P J Abdul Kalam - a scientist who served as the country's 11th President. He died at the age of 83 in 2015.

Another top political figure J Jayalalithaa, the late chief minister of Tamil Nadu, was a spinster. She died in December last year at the age of 68.