NOIDA: When Yogi Adityanath stood beside Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of the new Metro line between Noida and south Delhi, it was the first time since October 2011 that an Uttar Pradesh chief minister had set foot in Noida.Yogi, who heads a government that swept to power with a huge mandate and will be a key factor in the 2019 general elections in a state that sends most MPs to the Lok Sabha, drew lavish praise from Modi for breaking the ‘Noida jinx’.“A canard has been spread that he (Yogi) will be superstitious… that given his attire, he cannot have progressive thinking,” Modi said, referring to the saffron-clad, priest-turned-politician. “But today, I am happy he has come to Noida, about which an image was built that no CM can come here. He has broken the jinx without speaking, and with his actions proved all superstitions are false and a modern era cannot be like this,” the PM told a crowd of 20,000 at Amity University on Monday, in his speech to mark the inauguration of the Magenta line.“If a CM lives in the fear that he will lose his chair on going somewhere, then such people don’t have any right to become the CM,” Modi added, referring to the ‘jinx’, a decades-old belief that a CM visiting Noida loses elections.The ‘Noida jinx’ was reinforced when Mayawati lost the UP elections after visiting the city in 2011. “A society trapped in superstition can never progress. We are living in an era of technology and science. Faith has its own place but blind faith has no place anywhere,” Modi said.In a veiled response to the political row which BJP has been embroiled in with AAP, which asked why the Delhi CM had not been invited to the inauguration, Modi said, “Sometimes… even the best development work is also always measured on the scales of benefits of political parties rather than measuring them on the scales of public good.”In a 40-minute speech laden with emphasis on “good governance” — the PM mentioned it at least 15 times — Modi said mass transportation systems were the “need of the hour” as he flagged off the 12.64-km long Botanical Garden-Kalkaji section of the Magenta Line, which will in future connect with the domestic terminal of IGI airport. Talking about the problem of “self-interest” of bureaucrats that hampers governance in the country, he said he has taken it upon himself to change it.“We all know it takes a lot to change it. But should we take decisions only for political benefit and keep the country’s benefit at stake? The country has chosen a government which wants to follow policies and work with a clean intention,” Modi said.He also urged people to bring down their fuel requirements by 2022, the 75th year of Independence. “Even today, we are importing petroleum products on a very large scale. A lot of the country’s money is being invested in this… Can we bring down the amount of fuel which we are importing by some percentage? Can we save the country’s money within the country itself? For this, mass transportation, rapid transportation, multi-modal transportation is the need of the hour. Possibly, today, there are problems in spending money (cost of metro projects), priorities have to be changed a little but because of this, it (mass transportation) is going to benefit greatly in future,” he said.Urging commuters to make metro travel a matter of pride, the PM stressed the need for a mindset change. “I don’t think the top 10 industrialists of the country are going to travel in this. This is meant for you all, people who will travel in it with pride,” he said, adding Metro networks will come up in at least 50 cities in the country.Recalling that former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had become Delhi Metro ’s first passenger on December 24, 2002, he said the day was not far when Delhi will join the list of five cities with the best Metro networks in the world. The PM, in fact, made repeated references to Vajpayee and the projects started under his regime: Golden quadrilateral and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. “Very few people know that that dream belonged to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The yojana was started by Vajpayee due to which where every village in the country is being linked with roads. And we have taken it upon ourselves to take that dream towards completion by the end of 2019,” he said.To highlight good governance, Modi claimed his government had abolished 1,200 laws so far. He described the massive “web of laws” as the biggest hindrance in the path of governance. He also said work on laying railway lines and building national highways had been doubled.While the PM’s programme for the Metro inauguration began well in time as his chopper landed 10 minutes before the scheduled time, he left around 2.32pm, 12 minutes after the scheduled time.This was the PM’s third visit to Noida. His earlier visits were for the launch of the Stand Up India initiative in 2016 and inauguration of the widening of NH-24 in 2015.Yogi’s chopper landed at the Hindon helipad in Ghaziabad at 12.10pm, an hour and five minutes after the scheduled time and reached the helipad at Amity School at 12.25pm. He travelled to the Botanical Garden Metro station via road and reached the venue ahead of the PM, who reached at 1pm.