Our ears and eyes in Lucknow tell us that central Minister of State for Communications, Manoj Sinha was for a while riding well to the CM’s chair in Uttar Pradesh. He was apparently the first choice for the Modi-Shah duo. In fact, transport and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari had been given the deployed for clearing his path. Gadkari took up ‘office’ in the Five Star Taj Hotel and even got 187 MLAs to sign their support for Sinha. When Yogi Adityanath got wind of this, he rushed to Lucknow and he too took up ‘office’ in the same Taj. This became the game changer, and even the RSS fell in line. The Gomti flowed swiftly, as swiftly as the changes in the complex political drama, in which it soon became clear that Yogi pulled more weight. Watching these developments, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh sent two of his closest aides to meet Yogi, and they were swept off their feet by the deep saffron line toed by Yogi. After this, Yogi got a call from Shah and was told to reach Delhi to meet him. Shah promptly told him to meet Modi. By the time Yogi reached 7 RCR, Modi was about to leave for Uttarakhand to attend the oath taking ceremony there. The two met for barely two minutes. Modi congratulated him and said: “I am giving you a huge responsibility.” With that he went for Dehradun and Yogi rocketed to Lucknow.