Yogi Adityanath

Yogi Adityanath (born Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht; 5 June 1972) is an Indian Hindu monk and politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party who is serving as the 21st and current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 19 March 2017. He is the longest serving Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who is currently running his tenure for over 6 years, surpassing Sampurnanand. He represents Gorakhpur Urban Assembly constituency in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly since 2022 and was member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council from 2017 to 2022. He is a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency, Uttar Pradesh from 1998 to 2017 before he resigned to become the Chief Minister. He resigned from the legislative council after being elected to the legislative assembly. Adityanath is also the mahant (Head Priest) of the Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu monastery in Gorakhpur, a position he has held since September 2014 following the death of Mahant Avaidyanath, his spiritual "father". He is also the founder of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu nationalist organisation. He has an image of a Hindutva nationalist and a social conservative. Early life and education Yogi Adityanath was born as Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht on 5 June 1972 in the village of Panchur, in Pauri Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand) in a Rajput family. His late father, Anand Singh Bisht, was a forest ranger. He was the second born in the family, among four brothers and three sisters. He completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand. He left his home around the 1990s to join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement. Around that time, he also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath, the chief of the Gorakhnath Math. Mahant Avaidyanath was leading the Ayodhya Ram temple movement at that time. While based in Gorakhpur after his initiation, Adityanath has often visited his ancestral village, establishing a school there in 1998.