Contrary to the speculations, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has decided to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls from the seat of Gorakhpur, his home town, instead of Ayodhya or Mathura much to the surprise of his own party leaders and workers.
Gorakhpur City assembly constituency had been a bastion of the BJP and the saffron party has not lost there since 1967, the days of Jan Sangh. The incumbent MLA from the seat Radhamohan Das Aagarwal, an Adityanath confidante, has been winning from there since 2002.
''It is a safe seat for us....it also has a large number of disciples of the Gorakhnath Temple of which Adityanath is the Mahant....he should have no problems in winning the seat,'' said a local BJP leader in Gorakhpur.
Besides, Adityanath's presence would also have an impact on the 40 other assembly seats in Gorakhpur-Basti divisions, the leader added. ''A large number of senior party leaders from the two divisions have shifted allegiance this time....we needed a strong candidate in here to boost the morale of the workers,'' he remarked.
Sources, however, said that Adityanath chose to avoid Ayodhya and Mathura as these seats were not considered to be among the 'safer' seats within the party.
Besides there was a possibility of a backlash from the strong trader community in Ayodhya town as many of them had been evicted from their shops which once lined the narrow road leading to the Ram Temple. The traders had protested their eviction and demanded that they be given shops elsewhere. There was resentment against the land acquisition for the expansion of the town, sources said.
Satyendra Das, the chief priest of the makeshift Ram Temple, had also said a few days back that Adityanath should not contest from Ayodhya and choose Gorakhpur seat instead.
Similarly Mathura, despite the renewed clamor for the Shrikrishna Janmabhumi by the BJP, could also have been a risky proposition as it had a large presence of Brahmin voters. Congress leader Pradeep Mathura was quite popular there and had represented the seat several times in the past.
Adityanath's decision to shift to Gorakhpur invited sarcastic remarks from the opposition. ''It is good that he ha s decided to contest from Gorakhpur, his home town....he would not now have to leave the town...he will remain there as his party is going to lose the polls,'' said Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday.