Thread by @bloombergquint

#YogiAdityanath’s biggest challenger is not #AkhileshYadav.

His real competitors are the chief ministers of other BJP-run states.

Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka are four such examples, writes #PriyaRamani in #BQOpinion.

bloombergquint.com/opinion/up-ele…

Politicians who run these states were seemingly never automatic fundamentalists, points out #PriyaRamani.

Read more in #BQOpinion: bit.ly/3tHdHYG

In 2014, Himanta Biswa Sarma, then a Congress politician, said we do not do “Hindu-Muslim”.

By 2021, he was saying India belonged to Hindus, writes Priya Ramani in #BQOpinion.

bloombergquint.com/opinion/up-ele…

Once upon a time, Shivraj Singh Chouhan had no problem hosting iftaar parties and wearing a skull cap.

By 2020, he said those who plotted ‘love jihad’ would be “destroyed”.

Read Priya Ramani’s ‘Rational Anthem’ column in #BQOpinion.
bloombergquint.com/opinion/up-ele…

Former Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa is said to have publicly celebrated the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan in 2012.

In 2019, he cancelled those celebrations and vowed to remove all mention from textbooks, recalls Priya Ramani in #BQOpinion: bit.ly/3tHdHYG

Under Yediyurappa’s successor Basvaraj Bommai, Karnataka has taken a “sharp right turn”, writes Priya Ramani.

Read more in #BQOpinion: bit.ly/3tHdHYG

Now we’re at a stage in modern Indian history where everyone knows a family member or a friend who keeps shifting the goalposts to justify the hate, writes Priya Ramani.

Read more in her #BQOpinion column.

bit.ly/3tHdHYG