Express News Service
LUCKNOW: Breaking the much hyped 29-year-old jinx attached to Noida visit, UP CM Yogi Adityanath landed in the satellite city on Saturday to review the preparations for the inauguration of ‘Majenta Line’, the new Noida-Kalkaji metro, on the occasion of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday on Monday.
The Chief Minister would re-visit Noida to accompany PM Narendra Modi who would inaugurate the new metro line on December 25. However, UP CM’s Saturday visit is raising the dust as it has come amid the buzz that a CM tends to lose his/her chair or fails to return to power after visiting Noida. This has been the reason that UP CMs, during the last 29 years, have avoided Noida visits.
When brought to his notice, CM Yogi Adityanath said he was not bothered about his chair and can’t let a superstition come in the way of his visit. “It will be of no consequence if I lose my chair,” said the CM jocularly. However, he added that no ‘pretext’ should stop the leader from fulfilling his commitments. The CM apart from taking stock of the preparations for December 25 programme, also met a number of builders and buyers of flats to settle their ongoing issues.
“Noida and Greater Noida are the reflection of UP’s development. We are committed to the development of this region, however, corruption during previous regimes eclipsed the development not only of Noida and Greater Noida but also the entire state,” he said while interacting with media.
The Noida jinx gained ground in 1988 when the then CM Veer Bahdur Singh was removed just after his visit to Noida. In 1989, ND Tiwari also visited Noida as CM and lost power in the next elections. All the subsequent CMs, including Kalyan Singh, Mulayam Singh and Rajnath Singh avoided Noida visits during their respective tenures owing to jinx attached to it.
It is said that in 2002, Rajnath Singh, as Chief Minister, inaugurated a flyover linking Noida and Delhi, but staying on Delhi’s side of the border.
Mayawati during her previous tenure (2007-12) too tried to brave the superstition by visiting the city in 2011 and also after it to inaugurate a few government projects, but she was voted out of power in 2012 and Noida jinx reappeared to be acknowledged in the political circles of UP.
SP chief and previous CM Akhilesh Yadav, known to be a forward-looking tech-savvy leader too gave in to the infamous jinx. Initially, he claimed that he would visit the city to defeat the superstition but finally dropped the plan and stayed away from Noida. He even avoided an important Asian Development Bank Summit which had PM Manmohan Singh as chief guest in 2013. Akhilesh launched the development projects worth Rs 3,300 crore for Noida while sitting in Lucknow through video linking. He inaugurated a private university from his residence in Lucknow in April 2015.
