General (Retd) S.K. Sinha, who hails from Bihar, in an open letter urged Nitish Kumar to rename Patna as Patliputra.

”The long pending demand for renaming Patna had not been addressed even though Bombay became Mumbai, Calcutta Kolkata, Madras Chennai, Bangalore Bengaluru and Trivandrum became Thiruvantharapuram during the intervening years,” Sinha said in his letter.

He said if Bombay could become Mumbai, why can't Patna become Patliputra?

Sinha had initiated a campaign for renaming in the 1980s. He recalled that the proposal to rename Patna as Patliputra was unanimously approved by Patna Municipal Corporation and Bihar Cabinet during the late 1980s.

"Over 100,000 people had endorsed the move then by putting their signature and the state government also approved the proposal. But the central government failed to respond to it."

"I will appeal to people now to come in support of the demand to rename Patna as Patliputra," Sinha said.

He said Patliputra was the capital of India for nearly 1,000 years. It came into existence in 487 BC, it has given many things to the world.

Sinha said Patna had a history of hardly 500 years and the city acquired the status of state capital only in 1911 during British rule.

Patna has been known by different names through the centuries. The city of Patliputra, which was the capital of Magadh empire, had two older names, Pushpapur and Kusumpur, both meaning the city of flowers. Patali also means a flower. During the medieval period, it was renamed Azeemabad.