Yes, Prime Minister: inauguration day in Uttar Pradesh

After a decisive win by Narendra Modi’s BJP last week, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh will inaugurate Yogi Adityanath as its new chief minister on Sunday.

Home to a sixth of India’s population of 1.2 billion – making it the largest state in the world – Uttar Pradesh is a key political battleground. The BJP rode to victory on an intricate mix of populist measures – like welfare schemes and interest-free loans – and fierce attacks on the centre-left Samajwadi Party, which had ruled the state since 2012.

But more than this, the BJP’s victory in Uttar Pradesh is a resounding endorsement of PM Modi. The party relied almost exclusively on Mr Modi’s larger-than-life personality to carry it across the line, not even bothering to field a candidate for chief minister until a week after the results were announced.

The win bodes well for the prime minister’s prospects of being re-elected in 2019.

Simon Papagiorcopulo

Simon is the founder of Foreign Brief who served as managing director from 2015 to 2021. A lawyer by training, Simon has worked as an analyst and adviser in the private sector and government. Simon’s desire to help clients understand global developments in a contextualised way underpinned the establishment of Foreign Brief. This aspiration remains the organisation’s driving principle.

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