PM Modi At Noida Airport Inauguration Recalls 'Noida Jinx' — What Is It?

Last Updated:March 28, 2026, 13:34 IST

Noida Jinx: It was Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who finally, and defiantly, put the jinx to rest — visiting Noida nearly a dozen times since taking office in 2017.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at the inauguration of the Noida International Airport in Jewar on Saturday, recalled how the region was once held back by superstition and political timidity — and took a direct dig at the Samajwadi Party in the process.

“Noida was abandoned to its fate because of blind superstition," he said, referring to the long-held political belief that visiting Noida was an ill omen for those in power. “Earlier rulers were so afraid of losing their chairs that they avoided coming here altogether."

He then shared a personal anecdote. “I remember when the SP was in government and I had planned a visit to Noida. The Chief Minister was so rattled that he not only skipped the event but tried to talk me out of coming.

He said, ‘Modi ji, don’t go to Noida — you have just become the Prime Minister,'" Modi recalled. “I told him — I am going to seek the blessings of that land, which will give me the opportunity to serve for a long time to come."

The Prime Minister noted that the very region once shunned by politicians was now ready to welcome the entire world — standing today as a proud symbol of an self-reliant, confident India.

The Curse of Noida: A Jinx That Haunted UP Politics for Decades

The so-called “Noida jinx" held that any sitting Chief Minister who visited the city would lose the next Assembly election — and for nearly three decades, UP’s most powerful politicians took it deadly seriously.

The jinx took root in June 1988, when Chief Minister Veer Bahadur Singh was asked to step down just days after returning from Noida. What followed was a string of political casualties that kept the superstition very much alive: ND Tiwari in 1989, Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1995, Mayawati in 1997, and Kalyan Singh in 1999 all lost power after visiting the city.

The lengths to which leaders went to avoid Noida were, at times, almost comical. In 2021, the then CM Rajnath Singh preferred to inaugurate the DND Flyway — which connects Noida to Delhi — from the Delhi end, just to sidestep the jinx.

Akhilesh Yadav skipped the Asian Development Bank Summit in Noida in 2013, even though the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the chief guest. He would routinely inaugurate projects in the city via video link from Lucknow, rather than set foot there himself.

Even the Dadri lynching victim’s family was brought to Lucknow to meet Akhilesh, because he could not risk a visit to Noida.

It was Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who finally, and defiantly, put the jinx to rest — visiting Noida nearly a dozen times since taking office in 2017, and going on to win a second consecutive term in 2022.

The airport being inaugurated on Saturday sits in Jewar — right in the heart of Gautam Buddh Nagar, the district that once made grown politicians tremble.

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