Do we like Yogi Adityanath?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Real harm in his own words and a contested legal record, set against a transgender welfare board and an exposed state-level record.
Adityanath runs Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, as chief minister. We couldn't open a full profile for this card, so the early-life story is thin; what's solid is the record in office and the speeches, and that's where the trouble is. Amnesty International India was calling on him to withdraw earlier statements against Muslims the week he took the job in 2017.
That Amnesty statement cited a video uploaded in August 2014 in which he says: “If they kill one Hindu, we'll kill 100 Muslims.” Amnesty argued his rhetoric had increased religious divisions and put people at risk of discrimination, hostility and violence. That is the harm test in his own words, before any of the political spin.
It hasn't stopped. India Hate Lab, a research group, attributed 86 hate speech incidents to him in 2024, 7.4 per cent of all it counted, and Scroll reported its findings without any government response. In August 2024 in Agra he said “Batenge to katenge” (if divided, we will be cut), tying it to Bangladesh and urging unity. Asaduddin Owaisi replied that he was the one dividing people, pointing to hate speech against Muslims and bulldozers on homes.
The legal side is a stoush that never got to trial. A petitioner alleged he made anti-Muslim remarks at a 2007 Hindu Yuva Vahini meeting in Gorakhpur, and an FIR was filed alleging promotion of enmity between groups. The state refused sanction to prosecute, and in August 2022 the Supreme Court dismissed the challenge, saying it didn't need to examine the sanction question. So nothing was ever proven against him, and nothing was ever tested either.
Lately the pattern continues. In May 2026 he defended a crackdown on prayers on roads, saying “We will not stop it, but not on the road,” and said the same rules apply to everyone. Critics say it targets one community, while supporters say it is about traffic and emergency access. In June 2026 he promised action in the Ram temple donation case and told critics to give evidence to the investigators.
The good stuff is real, if narrower. His government set up the Kinnar Kalyan Board for the transgender community, with him as chair and a transgender woman as vice-chair with state-minister status. That is a concrete welfare step, and we're saying so. It doesn't cancel the harm test, which looks at what he says about Muslims.