Bhopal: Union minister for water resources Uma Bharti justified on Monday selection of Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath as UP chief minister.
"He's best and unanimous choice as UP CM. He should not be judged by his saffron robes only. Yogiji is a balanced person who will set new standards of governance in UP, " said Bharti in Bhopal on Monday evening.
On the new UP CM's hardline Hindutva image, the union minister said "go to his ashram in Gorakhpur and you'll yourself find out that maximum shops are owned and operated by the Muslims.
She claimed BJP's landslide win in UP proves now that BJP will have to play role of opposition as well, as there is no opposition left.
Putting to rest speculations about leadership change in Madhya Pradesh, the former MP CM said "I wish the present CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan breaks my 2003 record of winning 173 assembly seats in MP by clinching 175 plus seats out of 230 seats in next state polls."
Praising Chouhan's leadership qualities, she said he had done exceedingly well by winning two assembly polls in the state as well as all other polls also.
She also lauded Chouhan's Narmada Seva Yatra. The former MP chief minister, however, denied that she had dubbed Chouhan as bachcha chor (child lifter) in 2005.
When queried by scribes about purging of river Ganga, the minister said that the first timeline to clean Ganga river could be delayed by eight months due to technical reasons.
She stopped of comparing Ganga and Narmada rivers, saying that while Narmada is among clean rivers, the river Ganga is among most polluted rivers in world.
Bharti maintained that sewage in several cities including Varanasi, Allahabad and Kanpur, besides industrial waste is getting directly dumped in Ganga and therefore it is bound to be among the most polluted.