Another name change, it seems, is in the offing in Uttar Pradesh.
After Mughalsarai, Allahabad and Faizabad, the next district in the list could be Sultanpur from where union minister Maneka Gandhi has been nominated by the BJP as its candidate in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
It has been proposed that Sultanpur be re-christened as 'Kushbhavnagar' after 'Kush', one of the sons of Lord Rama, who, it is claimed, had established the town.
Interestingly the proposal to change the name has not come from the BJP leaders as has been the case in the past. It has come from the state governor Ram Naik.
In a letter to UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the governor has referred to a book entitled 'Sultanpur Itihas ki Jhalak' (A glimpse of history of Sultanpur), which claimed that the town had been established by 'Kush' and also that Lord Rama's consort Sita had stayed there with her two sons 'Luv and Kush'.
Naik said that the representatives of 'Rajputana Shaurya Foundation', an NGO, had met him and submitted a memorandum besides handing him over a copy of the book seeking re-christening of Sultanpur.
The proposal assumes significance as it comes at a time when the election campaign has picked up momentum in the state. BJP has shifted sitting MP from Sultanpur Varun Gandhi to Pilibhit and his mother Maneka Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been nominated from there.
The SP-BSP-RLD alliance has not yet declared its nominee. Congress has nominated Sanjay Singh from there.
Earlier the UP government had re-christened Mughal Sarai to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar, Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya.
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