In 2000, he became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and was twice elected as MLA from Haidergarh in 2001 and 2002. He was preceded by Ram Prakash Gupta as the Chief Minister and succeeded the President rule, later after Mayawati became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. At that time he was appointed as the Chief minister because from very long time he had made an image among people due to his ground level effect from long back the times of 1970's in the JP Movement and was also the Education Minister in Kalyan Singh ministry and was also active in the State Politics. At that time there also many leaders in BJP from Uttar Pradesh, but very few had a strong support at the ground level. He was at that time very much close to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and had a very clean image among the people of the State. He also portrayed as a leader of Rajputs (Thakur) who are a powerful community in the state and were also an ardent votebank of the party like Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Even unlike, L. K. Advani and Kalyan Singh, he was not a leader of "Firebrand Hindutva" ideology and was a very soft-speaken person.