Yogi Adityanath (born Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht on 5 June 1972) is an Indian Hindu monk and politician affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has served as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 2017, and is the state's longest-serving chief minister as well as the first to hold the office for two consecutive terms.
Before entering state politics, Adityanath represented the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency in the Parliament of India for nearly two decades, from 1998 until 2017. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha at the age of 26 in 1998, becoming one of the youngest parliamentarians of his time, and subsequently won five consecutive terms from the same constituency.
In 2017, Adityanath transitioned from central to state politics on being chosen as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He initially joined the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council that year. In 2022, he was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from the Gorakhpur Urban constituency.
Alongside his political career, Adityanath is the mahant (head priest) of the Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu monastery in Gorakhpur. He assumed this position in September 2014 following the death of his spiritual guru, Mahant Avaidyanath. He also founded the Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu nationalist organisation that has since become defunct. He is widely identified with Hindu nationalist and socially conservative positions. In the Indian Express list of India's most powerful personalities, he was placed fifth in 2023 and sixth in 2024.
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article on Yogi Adityanath.