Taking a jibe at Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that people had taught those leaders a bitter lesson who had threatened to send him to the ‘mutt’ (monastery), lock, stock and barrel after the Lok Sabha elections.

“During poll campaign, a leader was boasting that after elections he will send a ‘baba’ to mutt. The poll results are out. Where has he gone now?” Yogi asked without naming the leader during his interaction with media persons on Friday.

SP chief and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had referred to Yogi as ‘baba’ and had threatened to send him back to ‘mutt’. He had even said that the chief minister’s residence was washed with Gangajal after the BJP took over and when he returns to power, he would tell the media about the ‘chillam’ he recovered from the chief minister’s residence.

Yogi said that election results had closed down the “shops” of many politicians. “They were expert in dividing society on religious and caste lines. It was (Narendra) Modi’s magic which obliterated the thin line that was dividing people on the basis of castes,” he said.

Yogi said that soon there would be expansion of state ministry but before that the government would honour the first-time MPs.

The reshuffle in the state Cabinet is on the cards as three ministers in the Yogi Cabinet - Tourism Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Animal Husbandry Minister SPS Baghel and Khadi and Gramodyog Minister Satyadeo Pachauri — have been elected to the Lok Sabha from Allahabad, Agra and Kanpur respectively.

“We will take the right decision at the right time,” the Chief Minister  said.

BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey said that the party achieved its target to get 51 per cent of votes.

“BJP president Amit Shah had set a target of 50 per cent votes but we got 51 per cent votes. We won because we had a better vote management that helped us defeat castiest politics,” Pandey said and congratulated party workers for the stupendous success.