When Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday filed his nomination from Gorakhpur, where he is contesting his first state election, it would have seemed fitting to many observers. The BJP leader’s spiritual and political journey is deeply rooted in this place, particularly the Gorakhnath Math where his future was shaped largely by his guru, Mahant Avaidyanath.

“My deeksha (initiation) happened on Basant Panchami in 1994 but I had already come here a year earlier. And I had come in contact with Mahant Avaidyanath ji in 1989,” the chief minister said on Friday in an exclusive interview with Rahul Joshi, Group Editor-in-Chief, Network18, while sitting in the Gorakhnath Mandir in Gorakhpur after filing his nomination.

Elections for the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly are scheduled to be held in seven phases starting from February 10, with the results to be declared on March 10.

The BJP leader was born in a village in present-day Uttarakhand in 1972 as Ajay Singh to a Rajput family. He later took the name ‘Adityanath’. He’s a five-time MP from the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency. Yogi Adityanath was first elected to the lower house of Parliament in 1998 at the age of 26, becoming the youngest member of the 12th Lok Sabha. After winning the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2017, the BJP legislature party elected him as its leader and the next chief minister.