Self-propelled and cleverest among BJP's state chiefs, Adityanath could emerge as the star to watch

It is possible that Adityanath Yogi is not the communal dracula he is seen to be. He is of course a Hindutvavadi with a history of promoting doctrinal dogmatics of the extreme kind. But he is unlike the usual fringe zealots whose foolish statements shame their own mentors. He is intelligent. He is capable. He is clever. Importantly, he is beholden to no one in the political hierarchy of the day, yet he is a force the hierarchy cannot ignore. He has worked out his own narrative, not always in sync with the BJP's. Think of the implications of this exceptionality.

Think of the eight long days it took the BJP high command to name him as the chief minister choice. Obviously there was no ready consensus. On the contrary, there must have been efforts by important elements in the high command to block him. Eventually they had to yield to the forces that were behind him. Who were against him and why? Who fought for him and why? In which camp was Narendra Modi?

Answers will not be available outside the innermost circles of the BJP and RSS. But there were reports that, apart from other things, Adityanath's sword arm, the Hindu Yuva Vahini, would create trouble if their maharaj was sidelined. Right or wrong, the idea drew attention to Adityanath's uniqueness: No one else in the ruling dispensation has his own fighting arm of activists. Adityanath may belong to the BJP, but the BJP needs him more than he needs the BJP.

It is against this background that the new chief minister's debut pronouncements must be judged. The perceived dracula turned into a paragon of pragmatism as he managed to say that "development is my priority", then warned bureaucrats of penal action if they did not check communal flareups, crimes against women, and, yes, cow slaughter. Sanitation had to be taken up on a war footing, he told them. Off with lal battis on top of government cars, he ordered. And he asked his ministers and senior civil servants to provide details of their income and assets within 15 days. One thing is sure: Unlike BJP chief ministers in most other states, Adityanath Yogi will not be corrupt.

He developed impersonal goals as part of his sadhana as a temple priest. But then, inflexible ideological steadfastness is part of the same sadhana. It is no accident that the big issues that filled the UP air within two days of his taking over were not women's safety and sanitation, but the Ram Temple and slaughter houses. Ayodhya was a cause the revered Gorakhnath Peeth had taken up before the BJP or RSS did. Earlier temple heads had resorted to militant action to promote the cause. Adityanath is the proud inheritor of that tradition of militancy which would explain the explosive declamations he made from time to time against Muslims.

That background would have made Adityanath the candidate preferred by Hindutva hardliners who would like to "turn UP into a saffron laboratory on the lines of Gujarat". The BJP laid the foundations for experimentation by not fielding even one Muslim candidate in a state that is home to 140 million Muslims. Adityanath took into his cabinet a solitary Muslim, a benign cricketer. But he also made Suresh Rana a minister despite the man's role in the Muzaffarpur riots and four cases pending against him.

So where does the mix of signals leave UP and India? The intelligent politician in Adityanath will try to ensure that there are no Muzaffarpurs in UP now and that the Ram Temple issue is handled without triggering violence. However, he may not be too keen to control vigilantes who, always more loyal than the king, will insist that all meat is beef, all love is jihad. Since the BJP attributes its enormous victory in the state elections to its conscious policy of divisiveness, that line may be pursued for the run-up to the 2019 election as well.

In all this, Adityanath's role as UP's supremo will be critical. He will put his stamp on events as the days pass because he has a standing of his own unlike other state leaders who are mere extensions of the central command. Adityanath's potential to emerge as a BJP star in his own right -- a potential not shared by anyone else -- is what the world will be watching. Already there are references to him as "another Modi" and "the new Modi".

And he is only 44.