Dear Yogi Adityanath,

Though the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election is expected by March 2027, less than a year away, there is reason for you, as incumbent Chief Minister, to worry. It is two-fold: one is the souring national mood that you may have noticed. The other is the increasing insecurity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sees you as his only threat. He could conceivably make you a sacrificial lamb to tell the nation’s voters that besides him, TINA (there is no alternative). At the moment, you are the alternative; but time is running out. 

Bloomberg lately reported that the government may have sold 83 tons of gold for $12 billion to cover the $7.5 billion it purchased to keep the rupee from breaching 100-to-a-dollar. The Reserve Bank of India denied it; perhaps it was a trial balloon for a foolhardy and desperate move. The rupee is headed south; the energy crisis means petrol will soon reach Rs 120/liter; poor economic prospects are eroding wealth in the stock market, now having fallen behind South Korea’s in value; and the US has again imposed tariffs. It is ironic that Modi’s biggest supporters, who thought he was going to enrich them while getting rid of Muslims, are the loudest in baying for his head. 

Such privileged people are hardly the ones who will discomfit Modi; they will never vote against him. The ones he is worried about are the Gen Z kids, who are in an uproar over the CBSE on-screen marking (OSM) fiasco. Modi has no solution to this: he deployed his favorite TV anchors, who obediently used jackboots to denigrate the students and the “education mafia” running coaching institutes. Big mistake. 

One, Sarthak Siddhant, the student who raised a ruckus about getting back the wrong marksheet, displayed the tech-savvy that all kids these days seem to have, by tracing the company that got the OSM contract. Turns out that the vendor,  Coempt EduTeck, had already been blacklisted for negligence in Telangana; also, no surprise, Coempt is politically connected.  

Then, educators like Patna’s famous “Khan Sir” (Faizal Khan) have proliferated reels and videos savaging the “Godi media”; he has added in his crosshairs the real education mafia, which got eight acres of prime land in Delhi’s diplomatic enclave (Chanakyapuri) for a song (Re 1, to be precise). It is a high-priced school which exclusively admits only children of top IAS officers and journalists. 

The backlash from educators and students alike has made Modi’s head spin. Though he behaves like he has never heard that “the buck stops here”, he tried some damage control by transferring the CBSE head to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. This has fooled no one. Instead, there was a shooting outside his academy, but students thronged to his support. An intimidatory tactic backfired.  

Leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, but that is unlikely, as Modi’s instincts are to double down, as happened when the US justice department released the infamous Epstein Files, and Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri turned out to be a dramatis personae. All Modi did was wish Puri a happy birthday. You know why: autocratic authoritarians fear their veneer of being a strongman will vanish if they throw a lackey under the state transport bus. Such an act would show Modi made a mistake appointing said lackey in the first place. Less plausibly, it is because the lackeys know too much. 

Modi’s propagandists have aged and are out of touch with Gen Z. Ironically, it was the anger of young people of 2012, channeled by India Against Corruption (IAC), that helped bring Modi to power; another generation of angry young people jeopardises his incumbency and threatens to bring someone else in. 

That someone else is you, Yogi Adityanath. Let’s face it; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has no other vote-catching candidate to replace Modi, a laughingstock on the global stage and a bumpkin who has wrecked the economy. Twenty years ago, there were articles in the Western media about how India could overtake China. Now we grimace and admire the Westerner’s sense of humour, as we eat Chinese dust.  

Disgruntled majoritarian voters are unlikely to vote for any of the opposition parties, and even if they try, the Chief Election Commissioner will ensure the regime’s victory through well-documented dishonorable ways. Many voters have long said that after Modi, it will be you. They like your bulldozers, even if you haven’t turned UP into Guangdong.  

The only way Modi stays in power is by cutting you down to size. That he can try by ensuring an opposition victory in the UP Assembly election; because if you become a third term CM, then he may not even be able to flee to Rashtrapati Bhawan later in 2027, leaving the PM’s post to his hatchet man, Amit Shah. No wonder Shah will insist on selecting candidates for the Assembly election. Your own candidates will be sabotaged. 

This leaves you with a window of opportunity in the second half of this year, in which you must somehow see Modi out, and dispatch him to the Margdarshak Mandal—the paradise where all BJP old men are discarded.  

I don’t know how you will do this, but it should be a two-pronged strategy. One, behind the scenes, is to convince the RSS that Modi is a liability, which should not be difficult, as many in the RSS may already believe so. Two, publicly, you must align yourself with the students of India. You must call for Pradhan’s resignation and lay out novel alternatives for educators and students. You must hold a few rallies in Lucknow or even New Delhi, against the corruption that does not even spare the education system. 

It is no shame if you want to be the next PM of India, but the path to the Peacock Throne is not just through winning UP, it is also through bidding Modi a hasty but respectful adieu. Yogi Adityanath, your time has come. 

Aditya Sinha is a writer living on the outskirts of Delhi.

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