Shyamlal Yadav’s latest book looks at triumphs and trials of Uttar Pradesh’s 21 Chief Ministers

Debashish Mukerji

• At the height of Congress’ sycophancy towards Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency of the mid-1970s, one of the most popular slogans of the Uttar Pradesh Congress used to be: ‘Aaj ki neta Indira Gandhi, yuvaon ka neta Sanjay Gandhi, kal ka neta Rahul Gandhi!’ (Rahul must have been barely 5-6 years old at the time; his father Rajiv Gandhi was never mentioned at this stage as he had publicly declared his disinterest in politics).
• When Vir Bahadur Singh, UP’s Chief Minister from September 1985 to June 1988, took charge, he sought to improve the state’s lax administration by insisting that the gates of Lucknow’s Secretariat be locked at 10.15 am and the keys personally handed to him. Whoever arrived later would be sent back home and have a day’s salary docked. Among those who turned up late in the first few days was his own Health Minister, Lokpati Tripathi.
• Chandra Bhanu Gupta and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna were two political titans of UP. Towards the end of their political careers, when they were both in the Janata Party, Bahuguna actually admitted to Gupta that as UP Chief Minister during the 1974 Assembly elections, he had swapped a host of ballot boxes in the Lucknow (East) constituency that Gupta was contesting from, thereby getting him defeated by a narrow margin.

These are just three of the numerous anecdotes peppering this engaging account of 70 years of Uttar Pradesh’s post-Independence history (from the first election in 1952 to the 18th in 2022), looking at the triumphs and trials of each of its 21 Chief Ministers. Shyamlal Yadav, a veteran, award-winning political journalist, has turned scholar with this effort, trawling through the voluminous records of the UP Vidhan Sabha proceedings — apart from other historical sources — to bring back to life significant developments of yesteryear, which otherwise could well have been forgotten.

UP is the largest state in the country by population, sending 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha (85 before Uttarakhand was carved out in 2000), possessing such enormous political heft that eight of India’s 14 Prime Ministers (nine, if Narendra Modi, who holds the Varanasi seat, is included) hail from it. Yet, it remains the second-poorest state (after Bihar), rife with corruption, violence, casteism and criminals dominating politics, its per capita domestic product barely a fourth of states such as Telangana or Karnataka.

One of the main reasons, Yadav’s narrative suggests, has been the political instability plaguing the state from right after the first election; an instability frequently encouraged by Central leaders, who, aware of UP’s political clout, do not want a rival power centre to emerge there. It is shocking to note that the first Chief Minister to complete a full term in UP came to power only in 2007, 55 years after the first election — Mayawati, after her Bahujan Samaj Party won a full majority in the Assembly polls that year. Indeed, the last 17 years since 2007 have been the most stable in UP’s history, with only three Chief Ministers — Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav and Yogi Adityanath — coming to power. Adityanath is the first ever to win a second consecutive term in 2022.

Gobind Ballabh Pant, Chief Minister after the 1952 elections, was a father figure, who had led the state after the 1937 and 1946 provincial elections — held under British rule — as well. But once Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru summoned him to the Centre in mid-1955 as Union Home Minister, it became a free-for-all in Lucknow with different factions of the Congress forever competing. Dr Sampurnanand succeeded Pant, but CB Gupta and Charan Singh made it impossible for him to govern; once Gupta took over, Charan Singh and Kamalapati Tripathi did the same to him.

The pattern continued even after Indira Gandhi established herself as the unquestioned leader at the Centre, and indeed, under Rajiv Gandhi too. Indira finally gave Kamalapati Tripathi his chance to become Chief Minister, but he messed up so badly that he was replaced by HN Bahuguna, who in turn lost his position to Narayan Dutt Tiwari by falling afoul of Sanjay Gandhi. In Indira’s early 1980s’ spell, Vishwanath Pratap Singh as Chief Minister was similarly troubled by dissidents, as were his successors Shripati Mishra and ND Tiwari (returning for a second term). Under Rajiv Gandhi from 1985, Tiwari was replaced by Vir Bahadur Singh, but returned to the same job in June 1988.

Interestingly, even when other parties were in power at the Centre, the template remained — under the Janata Party in the late 1970s, Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav soon gave way to Banarasi Das; under the BJP in the late 1990s, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh clashed with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leading to Ram Prakash Gupta first taking over from him and later Rajnath Singh. Yadav’s narration is studiedly non-judgmental, but the facts he sets forth speak for themselves.

However, while chronicling an overall bleak tale, Yadav does not ignore its bright spots. It can also be seen from his recount that while Charan Singh’s name is a byword for political unscrupulousness, given the unholy alliances he forged to become UP Chief Minister and later — very briefly — Prime Minister, he was the same person who, first as Pant’s parliamentary secretary and later as UP’s Revenue Minister, played a crucial role in both drafting and implementing the UP Abolition of Zamindari Act, the most significant piece of land reform in the state.

ND Tiwari is mocked for his obsequiousness towards Indira and Sanjay Gandhi while Chief Minister during the Emergency years, as also for two personal scandals that vitiated his old age. Yet, it was the same man who, during his first stint in 1976, planned and set up Noida, which remains the only modern industrial centre of note in UP, contributing more than 10 per cent of its GDP.