Sep 11, 2026, 7:05 AM2 views

Govind Ballabh Pant was a Congress icon. Why does his legacy appeal to BJP?

Pant, UP’s first Chief Minister, was a complex character who cannot be easily bracketed in an ideological binary.

6 min readNew DelhiSep 11, 2026 07:05 AM IST First published on: Sep 11, 2026 at 07:05 AM IST

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday paid tribute to the state’s first CM on his 139th birth anniversary. The CM showered praise on Pant as a freedom fighter, a promoter of Hindi, and someone who helped implement land reforms in the state.

Pant was a prominent Congress leader and the praise for him from a BJP leader is not the first time that the party has chosen to celebrate a leader from the Congress, its primary rival today at the national level.

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Reported by Vikas Pathak · Syndicated via official news feed

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