From Yogi Adityanath To Aditya Nath Yogi, The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Returns Home

New Delhi: Last Sunday, Yogi Adityanath hurriedly left his home for over two decades in a chartered aircraft sent for him to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. "It was an important meeting," he later said but insisted he wasn't in the race for the next chief minister. And he was right. From where he stood, there was no race. A few hours later, he was anointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and took charge of the country's most populous state the next day. He has been at work since then.

Today, he has returned home, Gorakhpur.

And he isn't the Yogi Adityanath who left the town of 6 lakh people in eastern Uttar Pradesh, last week. As Chief Minister, he is Aditya Nath Yogi as the name plate outside his Lucknow bungalow and the government website refers to him.

To the thousands have lined up along the streets of Gorakhpur or put up the hoardings to welcome him back, it really doesn't matter. This is the town that has voted the saffron-robed controversial Hindutva face of the BJP for nearly two decades. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, like the one before, Adityanath got more votes than all his rivals put together.

This is also the constituency that, Adityanath in his farewell address to parliament, held out as a model for the rest of Uttar Pradesh. Traders don't have to pay goonda tax, doctors are not kidnapped, the chief minister said on Tuesday.

For the locals, politicians, traders and industries, nobody has left anything to chance to make sure the Chief Minister gets a grand welcome. The town is swept in saffron and every single person who can, has put up a poster to welcome him.

Till minutes before he landed at the Gorakhpur airport, workers were still building more hoardings. The queue of traders' association and community leaders who want to present a bouquet to him at Maharana Pratap College, Adityanath's first stop from the airport, was so long that the district administration had to make the list and fix the pecking order.

Authorities have already asked people to stay indoors unless they are out to welcome him; the roads are going to get choc-o-bloc when his road show starts from the airport.

After a meeting with his supporters, and later, district officials to give development in eastern Uttar Pradesh a hard push, the Chief Minister will end the day with a function at Gorakhnath Math, where he is the Mahant, head priest. Dwaraka Tiwary, the manager at the Math, said people from neighbouring districts have also come to see the new Chief Minister.

District police officers said security had been scaled up, and the police had taken all steps including deployment of drones to keep a close watch.