TO SOME he is both hero and saint: a shaven-headed, saffron-robed servant of the Lord Shiva who has been elected five times in a row to India's national parliament and elevated, at just 44 years of age, to the highest political office in a state of 220m people. To others the choice of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (or up as the state is often abbreviated) seems ominous. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a columnist in the daily Indian Express who rarely uses such blunt language, describes the Hindu priest-turned-politician as "the single most divisive, abusive, polarising figure in up politics".
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