Ever since Adityanath, the mahant of the Goraknath Temple, became Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, his supposed love for animals has turned into the stuff of social media retweets.

Which, perhaps, is what social media exists for in the first place. To retweet animal videos. What is more surprising, perhaps, is the eagerness with which even formal media has responded to the photo- and video-ops his PR machinery creates with animals.

In March, when he was preparing to shift to the official residence in Lucknow from Gorakhpur, a flurry of reports about a “saintly makeover” involving the cows at Gorakhnath temple’s gaushala made headlines, and his “gentle”, “nurturing” nature was much lauded by his followers.

A recent video tweeted by ANI News attempts to take this narrative forward, with the crowd shown making way for Adityanath to greet his pet dog, Kaalu. A distraction tactic from his hardline politics and statements like “If one Hindu girl is converted, we will convert 100 Muslim girls”; “there is no difference in the language between Shah Rukh Khan and Hafiz Saeed”? The answer may lie in the eyes of the beholder.