The animosity between Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya has bubbled to the surface once again over the Jyotirmath Shankaracharya’s dharna at the Magh Mela in Allahabad. The mela administration had on January 18 asked Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand to step out of his palanquin and walk towards the Sangam without his followers to take a holy bath on Mauni Amavasya. “I bow my head before the revered Shankaracharya and pray to him to take the holy bath,” the deputy chief minister told reporters. Maurya should be made the chief minister,” he had said. The BJP had contested the 2017 Assembly elections under Maurya as the party head in Uttar Pradesh.

Source: The Telegraph January 24, 2026 23:06 UTC