‘DEMANDS FOR RENAMING MANY CITIES KEEP COMING BUT NO PROPOSAL YET’

LUCKNOW : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Farrukhabad Mukesh Rajput’s fresh demand for renaming the city to Panchal Nagar to “revive the ancient Indian culture” has brought the politics of name change back into focus with the speculations that the Yogi government 2.0 too may rename some cities having a Muslim tag.

The state government has already demonstrated its penchant for “correcting historical blunders” by renaming Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya apart from rechristening Mughalsarai city and railway station after BJP ideologue Pt Deendayal Upadhyay during its first stint.

The government, it is believed, may further change names or rename around a dozen cities/districts sooner or later to restore to them their ancient identity and glory as being demanded by locals. Additional chief secretary (revenue) Manoj Kumar Singh, however, said no proposal for renaming any city or district was under consideration at his level at this juncture.

“I am not aware of any proposal being under consideration for renaming any city or district,” he said when asked whether the government was planning renaming more cities or districts.

A proposal for naming and renaming a district/city is moved through the revenue department.

Another revenue department official who did not wish to be identified said the department kept on getting letters from locals, people’ representatives and saffron outfits all demanding renaming their cities.

“We have received a lot of letters during the last five years from different quarters who demand renaming of mainly those cities that are named after Muslim rulers or have some other Muslim tag attached to them,” the official said, adding “We forward all such letters to the DMs concerned for necessary action.”

Among the cities the renaming of which is being demanded, according to him, are Firozabad, Agra, Aligarh, Farrukhabad, Sultanpur, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Mirzapur, Ghazipur and Mainpuri.

“We cannot rule out the possibility of the government making these demands the basis for renaming some more cities in the days to come,” the official said.

“But as of now, no such proposal is under consideration, not at least at our level,” he added.

THE GOVERNMENT MAY FURTHER CHANGE NAMES OR RENAME AROUND A DOZEN CITIES