UP government may embark on name changing spree before 2024 LS polls

Apparently keeping an eye on next year's Lok Sabha polls and expecting to gain electoral mileage in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government may once again embark on a name-changing spree, rechristening places with Muslim names.

A hint to this effect was dropped when UP Deputy Chief Minister Brijesh Pathak on Wednesday said that Lucknow had been known as Laxman Nagari in the past. Pathak was responding to a demand made by BJP MP Sangam Lal Gupta to re-christen Lucknow to 'Laxmanpur' or 'Lakhanpur'.

"It is a well-known fact (that the name of Lucknow was earlier Laxman Nagari). There have been demands to re-name Lucknow. We will take this issue forward according to the situation," Pathak said.

Gupta is an MP from Pratapgarh and he wrote to PM Narendra Modi with this demand.

Incidentally, Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president Om Prakash Rajbhar, who had hinted that he might ally with the saffron party in UP's future elections, also wrote to UP CM Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday demanding the renaming of Ghazipur district after Hindu sage Vishwamitra.

Adityanath, in his first stint as CM, had rechristened Faizabad district as Ayodhya and the railway station as Ayodhya Cantt and Allahabad as Prayagraj. The Mughalsarai and Jhansi railways stations were also renamed as Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar and Veerangana Laxmibai respectively.

Earlier, around a dozen municipal wards with Muslim names were rechristened after Hindu leaders, seers and poets in Gorakhpur, the hometown of Yogi Adityanath. Saffron outfits had been pressing the state government to change the names of Sultanpur, Mirzapur, Aligarh, Firozabad and Mainpuri. Such demands were made during Adityanath's first term.

The saffron party wanted to rechristen Sultanpur as Kush Bhavanpur, Aligarh as Harigarh, Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar, Firozabad as Chandra Nagar and Mirzapur as Vindhya Dham, said a BJP leader here.

Besides, saffron outfits have also demanded to rechristen Agra as Agravan and Muzaffarnagar as Laxmi Nagar. The Aligarh district panchayat board had earlier adopted a resolution recommending changing the name of the district to Harigarh. Similarly, a proposal to rename Mainpuri district as 'Mayan Nagar' was also adopted by the district panchayat board of Mainpuri. A similar resolution was adopted by the Firozabad district panchayat board demanding that the district be renamed Chandra Nagar.

Adityanath had also while addressing public meetings before the Lok Sabha bypoll at Azamgarh last year hinted at changing the name of the district to 'Aryangarh'.

Opposition parties have termed the name-changing proposals as "electoral gimmicks" intended to hide the failures of the state government.