UP CM on a name changing spree

Kanpur airport will be named after Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath continues his exercise to rename places and projects after BJP ideologues as he on Friday announced that Kanpur’s Chakeri airport would be named after Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, a wellknown journalist and activist.

Mr Yogi, who visited Kanpur on Thursday, decided to name the Panki railway station as Panki Dham railway station, after the famous Hanuman temple in Panki. Earlier, he had decided to rename the civilian terminal of the Indian Air Force (IAF) airport in Gorakhpur after Mahayogi Gorakhnath, the founder of the influential

Nath monastic movement. The government has also proposed to rename the IAF’s Agra airport after BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. The state government has already been

in a controversy when it decided to rename the Mughalsarai railway station as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya station. Mughalsarai is one of the busiest railway stations on the Eastern Railway network and the BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya had died while travelling in a train near Mughalsarai in 1968. He was the former president of the Bhartiya Jan Sangh, the parent organisation of the BJP.

The Congress has been demanding that the railway station should be named after former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Also, the newly elected chief minister removed the word ‘Samajwadi’ from a slew of government schemes including ambulance services, welfare schemes.

“All the proposals for changing names of railway stations and airports would be sent to the centre for the final seal of approval,” said a senior official.