Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti on Monday said the newly-appointed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was the most suitable candidate for the job.
Bharti while talking to media persons here on Monday said, "Yogiji is a balanced person. He has long experience in Parliament and has carried forward an ideology. I think he is most suitable for a State like Uttar Pradesh and would establish new dimensions (of governance). One should not judge him by his robes. He has taken 'sanyas' and it is his personal life style. We have to see whether he is a good politician, whether he has the capacity to take along everyone and he is most suitable from these viewpoints."
She claimed that Adityanath was the unanimous choice for the Chief Minister 's post. Asked about his image as a Hindutva hardliner, Bharti said maximum number of shops at his ashram in Gorakhpur is owned by Muslims.
On rising opposition to EVMs following the Uttar Pradesh poll results, Bharti, who herself once opposed these machines, said, "The Election Commission has settled this issue long back. It has demonstrated that EVM cannot be tampered with and its view should be accepted."
When asked whether she made a mistake by quitting as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister in 2004, Bharti defended her decision. She decided to resign because of a case related to the national flag, and she had no regrets, the senior BJP leader said.
She also praised Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's leadership, and denied having called him "Baccha Chor" (child-lifter) when she was denied power in 2005. "I had said this about someone who is no more," she said. "I wish he (Chouhan) breaks my record (of winning 173 seats) by winning more than 175 out of the 230 Assembly seats in MP," she added. Reacting to Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh banning the use of red beacon atop Government vehicles, Union Minister Uma Bharti expressed dissent over the decision, saying that delaying flights and stopping traffic for Ministers is not a big issue. "If any Minister is going for his duty, then red beacon and stopping traffic is fine and even a flight can get delayed by five to seven minutes if a Minister is going to attend a crucial meet because it might result in loss of crores of rupees," Bharti said. However, Bharti further said that if a Minister is going for any personal visit, then this privilege should not be given to him.