Well, for the longest time after Yogi Adityanath took charge, UP’s gangsters were on the run with many of them shot dead in sugarcane, wheat and paddy fronds. Such was the fear that most gangsters felt safe inside jail than outside jail, breathing the good fresh air. Bail pleas plummeted and Yogi’s cops didn't have time to spare between encounters – sorry Sachin Vaze, and Pradeep Sharma.

One of the “encounters” that masqueraded under “accident” was that of “dreaded” gangster Vikas Dubey, who was on the run, then in custody, and finally killed while said to be enacting an escape-bid from a police jeep that turned turtle for no reason at all. Trigger-happy UP Police, somebody said, did Dubey a favour.

Fact is, if law & order is about killing gangsters in encounters, the Uttar Pradesh Police under Yogi Adityanath made lots of merry. But talk of rapes and sexual molestations and poor Dalit girls would bolt with shouted ‘Yikes’. There have been so many rapes in UP since after the BJP won by a landslide in 2017 that if people today vote by rapes alone, the BJP would lose by a landslide. The Unnao rape, and the Hathras gang-rape, are just two of the umpteen reported rape cases.

In 2019, a prominent national daily noted that the “law and order situation remains a potential Achilles Heel for the Yogi Adityanath regime in Uttar Pradesh.” This, after the Chief Minister claimed that “tough action such as police encounters” had finished off "organised crime". However, added the daily, “recent incidents of assaults on women and children tell a different story.”

A 15-year-old girl was raped and burnt in Sambhal district. She succumbed to injuries in a Delhi hospital. The Congress and Samajwadi Party railed against the “unmoved” Yogi regime. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra added her voice to that of Akhilesh Yadav. They said they were “shocked” by the number of sexual crimes in UP. Amit Shah did not overreact!

This was followed by a rape-cum-murder of a schoolgirl in Mainpuri. The Yogi set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and removed the district magistrate. Also the district police chief. Then, there was the rape-cum-murder of a girl in Rae Bareli, and that of another in Chitrakoot. It was clear that rapists and molesters didn’t give two hoots to Yogi’s “encounters”.

A BJP spokesperson was mildly angry. He told the Opposition not to “derive political mileage” from rapes, and that the Yogi Government was doing “much better” than the earlier Samajwadi Party regime. People kept their “mum” to themselves. Plenty of you-tubers gave the state government the benefit of doubt. Old foggy men in Western Uttar Pradesh chugged on the hookah and presented toothless smiles.

The Opposition was not amused. Horrified! “What message are you sending across the state when rape accused Chinmayanand is admitted to a hospital but the rape survivor is put behind bars?” Something similar happened to the Unnao rape survivor, too. The Yogi template was patented, and protected, for repeated use.

No wonder the young and old with rape in the head weren’t scared of Yogi’s police. If anything bad happened, it happened to the likes of Kappan Siddiqui, journalist behind bars battling language and other custodial barriers. One of the criticisms levelled against the UP Government is that it’s selective to the point of being criminal, and picks on only certain kinds of folks!

So, what do we make of Amit Shah giving Yogi Adityanath exemplary marks, using the words “safal” and “yashasvi” to describe him and his tenure? Immediately pops to mind the 2022 UP assembly elections when the Yogi regime will be judged and voted on by upwards of 20 crore Uttar Pradeshvasis, some of the most politically sensitive and aware people on the subcontinent.

It’s true that when it comes to “encounters”, Yogi Adityanath’s police beat the Mumbai Police of the 1980s and 1990s hands down, but some of the encounter-killings smacked of cold-blooded murders by men in uniform. If a “dabang” of the stature of Mukhtar Ansari developed cold feet, it spoke volumes of the sort of dread visited on UP’s gangsters and commoners alike.

They say it’s Yogi Adityanath’s “vendetta”, his “muhim” against UP’s gangsters; that the Yogi carries a long-standing “grudge” against gangster-dom, dating back to his stints as Gorakhpur’s Lok Sabha MP. Then, the Yogi had stood up in Parliament and wept his frustration at his inability to deal with UP’s rowdies. Then, when he became UP Chief Minister, the screenplay came typed and printed.

Now, with every passing day the 2022 UP assembly elections are getting closer and the UP electorate has to be reminded that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is a swell guy with a swell law & order record for want of other swell records. That, apart from the odd rape, here and there, the law and order situation is a swell example of how the law and order machinery should work in any state. The impending 2022 UP assembly elections are why Home Minister Amit Shah is singing the saffron-clad Yogi’s praise, 'safal' and 'yashasvi'. Maybe the electorate of UP is not all gaga over the yogi's handling of law & order! (IPA Service)