LUCKNOW: When chief minister

’s boat cut through a swollen Ghaghra to rescue trapped villagers in Bharaich last year, he made it clear to everyone he was a chief minister with a difference. Unlike most CMs who take an aerial survey of flood-hit regions in chartered planes, Yogi chose to take a boat to distribute relief to the marooned.

At the half-way mark of his five-year term, Yogi Adityanath has left a stamp in day-to-day governance. He has been taking on corruption, monitoring work of departments, centre-staging development agenda and leading a determined battle against organised mafia and hardened criminals.

There is no denying the fact that the flourishing ‘transfer-posting industry’ in Yogi-raj has been dismantled, at least in his political circumference as power brokers dread coming near him. Yogi did not mind cancelling the list of transfers of CMOs even if it was released by his own health minister and he snubbed another minister in the stamp and registration department by launching an inquiry into arbitrary transfers and postings. The CM even forced his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya to resign from the post of UPRNN chairman and handed over reins to the department’s principal secretary.

On law and order front and crime control, Yogi adopted a zero-tolerance policy and gave a free hand to police to liquidate crime syndicates, resulting in 94 gangsters being eliminated in encounters, 500 injured and more than 5,000 behind bars in last two-and-half years. He has not taken note even when he was criticised for being pro-police and adopting a muscular policy against the mafia. In fact, the way notorious don Munna Bajrangi was shot inside the jail itself raised eyebrows. Yogi did not bow even when his arch rival and SP national president Akhilesh Yadav repeatedly questioned his “thoko” policy (killing suspected criminals in stage-managed police encounters) and the probability of innocents being killed by trigger-happy cops.

Barring a sporadic incidents, the state has not witnessed any major communal conflagration under Yogi’s watch.

It was not an exaggeration, when the Union home minister and the national president of BJP, Amit Shah, during a programme in Lucknow complimented Yogi for his deft handling. “Despite his inexperience and lack of exposure as he had never even held a lower-rung post in a municipality, Yogi has lived up to the mark. I am more than satisfied with his performance,” Shah had said.

Aggressively pursuing the development agenda, his government has signed MoUs of over Rs 4.28 lakh crore and held two ground-breaking ceremonies in last one year to ensure investment promises turn into reality.

Calling a 48-hour non-stop session of the assembly to discuss sustainable development goals with the Opposition, leading his council of ministers to Raj Bhawan to take governance tips from governor Anandiben Patel and then heading to IIM-Lucknow along with bureaucrats to learn corporate-style functioning are some of the hallmarks of Yogi’s two-and-half year regime.

When Yogi pads up on Friday to bat the remaining overs of his innings before the 2022 assembly elections, he would have to launch his own schemes and complete projects to counter Akhilesh Yadav’s charge that so far the BJP government has inaugurated and re-inaugurated projects of the SP regime. Whether it is the Lucknow Metro, Agra-Lucknow expressway, majestic Lok Bhawan, the Signature building to house police headquarters, or his effort to expedite the Poorvanchal expressway — these all bear the mark of Akhilesh Yadav’s dream.

The Bundelkhand expressway or defence corridor have very thin chances of being completed by 2022. Can Yogi boast of any major project, which his government has started and inaugurated too? The progress in Kanpur, Agra or Varanasi Metros is slow. Apparently to paper over this drawback, Yogi has cleverly pursued his Hindutva agenda by focusing on ‘Gai (cow) and Ganga’.