Yogi steps up UP tours, launches Rs 5,000 crore projects

Lucknow: In the run-up to UP elections, CM Yogi Adityanath has stepped up the poll spadework in the state, undertaking extensive tours to drive up the development and public welfare narrative.According to the recent list of the CM’s engagements, Yogi has already travelled to multiple districts — traversing across west, central and east UP — in a span of 28 days to inaugurate/lay the foundation stone of developmental projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore.The development, analysts said, marks Yogi’s calibrated move to reinforce the BJP govt’s infrastructure-led growth and welfare delivery narrative ahead of the upcoming poll cycles.The development comes over the past four weeks, following the high-decibel and reportedly successful campaign in the West Bengal elections, where Yogi pitched the “UP model” — a blend of strong law-and-order enforcement and visible development — as a replicable governance template. Observers say this narrative is now being reinforced within the state itself.In Saharanpur, he launched public welfare projects worth Rs 2,131 crore on May 7, followed by inauguration and foundation stone-laying of 79 projects worth Rs 208 crore in Maharajganj on May 15. Yogi then moved to his political stronghold of Gorakhpur on May 16 to lay the foundation stone of an international stadium spread across 46 acres at a cost of Rs 393 crore.The CM travelled to Deoria on May 22 to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of 19 projects costing Rs 655 crore. Four days later, on May 26, Yogi visited Prayagraj to inaugurate projects worth Rs 400 crore. The same day, he laid the foundation stone of Lucknow Municipal Corporation projects worth Rs 413 crore.Yogi then visited Mau on May 29 to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of 114 projects worth Rs 392 crore and also sought a proposal for the expansion of the Ghosi sugar mill. On June 2, he reached Kushinagar, where he inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of 278 projects worth Rs 424 crore.Adityanath’s engagements also included the distribution of appointment letters on at least two occasions — to auditors of cooperative societies and the panchayat audit department on May 4, and to newly selected candidates for various departments through UPPSC and UPSSSC on May 7. He also distributed land rights documents to 1,645 families displaced from Pakistan, as well as to ex-servicemen/lessees, in Bijnor on June 1.Officials and observers say the chief minister’s frequent tours are not merely administrative exercises but also serve as political communication tools. Besides announcing a proposal to rename Fazilnagar in Kushinagar as Pawagarh in honour of Lord Mahavir, Yogi reiterated his govt’s tough stance on crime, saying those who did not reform through persuasion “would face strict action”.At a programme in Bijnor on June 1, Yogi criticised Muslim clerics’ demand to declare the cow a national animal, saying that in the Sanatan tradition, the cow is already regarded as “gaumata” and does not require formal declaration.