Akhilesh Yadav visits 'inauspicious' Noida after 10 years. What took so long?

"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds," famous British-Irish economist and philosopher Edmun Burke once said. 

While the common man has his own tryst with superstitions, like hanging lemon-chilly charms, avoiding a black cat on roads; our politicians have their own superstitions. One such superstition has existed in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) city Noida. Any political leader who visits this place is said to lose power, and hence, they purposely stay away from it.

SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, a post-graduate in environmental engineering from Australia, will break this jinx after himself having believed in it for several years. The former UP CM will mark his first ever visit to Noida on Februrary 3, 2022, after a gap of 10 years, to address a press conference ahead of UP Assembly elections 2022.

On a TV programme in 2016, on ABP News, when Akhilesh was asked as to why he never visits Noida and in future if he would visit the city, Akhilesh smartly dodged it saying that after forming the next government in 2017, he would definitely go there. But he lost in 2017.

Not only Akhilesh Yadav, his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and several other political leaders of UP have stayed away from Noida.

What is the Noida jinx? What were the previous events when politicians avoided the industrial city?

1. WHAT IS THE NOIDA JINX?

Noida or New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, an industrial town that was crafted from a cluster of small villages, a city that drives UP’s economy, was victim to an unfounded claim that any political leader of UP who visits Noida, is bound to lose power. This jinx popularly came to be known as 'Noida Jinx'.

It all started in 1988, when UP CM Vir Bahadur Singh visited Noida and upon his return, he was asked to step down as the CM. Though he lost majority in the assembly because of his own constituency Gorakhpur, it is said that his visit to Noida brought a bad omen on him because of which he had to relinquish his chief ministership. Even ND Tiwari who succeeded Singh, was removed as CM in 1989 after he made a visit to Noida and lost the next elections.

Since then, the political leaders of UP have maintained a safe distance from Noida.

2. RAJNATH SINGH TOED THE LINE

Rajnath Singh, when he was the UP CM, stayed on Delhi's side of border while inaugurating the famous Noida-Delhi flyover on February 1, 2001. The BJP leader who was the CM since 2000, anyway, had to tender his resignation in 2002, after his government failed to prove majority in the assembly.

Rajnath resigned as CM in March 2002 and President's rule was imposed in the state. In the next assembly elections in 2003, Mayawati became the CM for the third time. Though Rajnath believed the jinx and did what he could to avert it, he still lost his CM chair.

3. MAYAWATI VISITED AND LOST

When Mayawati was the UP CM from 2007-12, she tried to break this jinx and visited Noida in 2011 to inaugurate the Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal. She lost the next assembly elections in 2012. This only strengthened the jinx around Noida.

Her successor and the next UP CM, Akhilesh Yadav, was so convinced by this jinx that he maintained an arm's distance from Noida for the full five years of his term.

4. MULAYAM FOLLOWED

In 2006, when Noida was shell-shocked by the Nithari killings, then UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav didn’t visit the city; and instead, sent his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav to visit the families.

5. AKHILESH’S 'NO THANK-YOU' TO NOIDA

In 2012, Akhilesh Yadav as UP CM, inaugurated the 24.53-km Delhi-Noida-Greater Noida Expressway with the Delhi CM, rather than going to Noida.

In 2013, he refused to be part of the Asian Development Bank Summit which was attended by then PM Manmohan Singh in Noida.

In April 2013 again, he inaugurated projects worth Rs 3,300 crore, including the grand six-lane Yamuna Expressway by pressing a button from Lucknow than actually going to Noida. Even for a project as mammoth as this one, the Yadav supremo chose to attend it virtually.

In December 2016, he started off projects worth Rs 5,000 crore but from Lucknow only. Akhilesh even inaugurated Nasscom’s Noida by sitting in a five-star hotel in Delhi, few kilometres away from Noida, rather than risking his chair.

Even for the laptop distribution exercise, which was an initiative towards education, UP CM got his officials to organise event in Ghaziabad than in Noida. Around 2,476 students fought traffic jams in Ghaziabad to collect their laptops. Akhilesh once again, didn’t go to Noida.

The Dadri lynching case, which rocked the country in 2015, also didn’t dissuade the CM from his theory and at a time when political leaders were visiting Dadri, Akhilesh asked one of his MLAs to make arrangements to bring Akhlakh’s wife and daughter to Lucknow rather than he himself visiting Noida.

All this clearly showed that the former CM, someone perceived as a modern-day leader, trusted his superstitions more than science.

6. YOGI BROKE IT

Yogi Adityanath however, broke this jinx, and has visited Noida number of times. He went there in 2017, along wtih PM Narendra Modi, to inaugurate the Magenta Line of the Metro to Botanical Garden.

However, in 2018, Yogi Adityanath lost prestigious 2 Lok Sabha by-polls including his own seat from Gorakhpur. Talks of the Noida jinx were back.

But the UP CM rebuffed all these claims and has been visiting Noida regularly. He was also in the city to review the Covid-19 preparations during the third wave.

Taking a dig at previous leaders, Yogi Adityanath said that the previous leaders had no agenda for development and hence they avoided coming to Noida. He said that his own life and power were not more important than the interest of people and development work.

7. THE JEWAR DADRI AND NOIDA SEAT

As the three seats of Dadri, Jewar and Noida go to polls in the first phase, on February 10, Akhilesh's visit to Noida is also a step to woo the voters for his candidates.

But SP candidates lost all the three seats in 2017, as well as in 2012 assembly elections. BJP swept all the three seats in the 2017 contest while BSP won two (Dadri and Jewar) in 2012. BJP retained Noida in 2012 also.

So, SP candidates will have to pull something extraordinary to snatch the seats from the BJP this time. Maybe Akhilesh's visit to Noida is an indicator of how far he is willing to go... jinx or otherwise.