Proposal to rechristen Aligarh as 'Harigarh'

After rechristening Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya, there is now a demand for renaming Aligarh as Harigarh.

The Aligarh district panchayat board, in its meeting on Monday, adopted a resolution rechristening the district as 'Harigarh'. "The proposal has been sent to the state government," a district panchayat official said on Tuesday.

According to the sources, the MLAs from the district along with members of the panchayat board were present at the meeting when the resolution was adopted. "It was passed unanimously," the official added.

In a similar development, a proposal to rename Mainpuri district as 'Mayan Nagar' was also adopted by the district panchayat board of Mainpuri. The saffron outfits claimed that a sage Mayan had established the town of Mainpuri and hence it should be named after him.

The proposal to change the name of Aligarh was first mooted in 1992 when Kalyan Singh was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had also passed a resolution in 2015 demanding rechristening the district as Harigarh.

A few days back, a similar resolution was adopted by the Firozabad district panchayat board demanding that the district be renamed Chandra Nagar. The saffron affiliated members of the Board claimed that the town had been established by King Chandrasen.

The proposals assume electoral significance as the state is scheduled to go to the polls in March next year. The saffron outfits have claimed that many of the towns and districts in the state were named after Muslim rulers and victors though they had different names earlier.

"The BJP government has no concern for the people... it has failed on all fronts... the proposal and demand to rechristen districts and towns in the state is nothing but to hide the failure of the state government," said an opposition Samajwadi Party leader.