New Delhi: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has announced that 15 places in the BJP-ruled state would be renamed in accordance with “public sentiment and Indian culture and heritage”.
Dhami made the announcement on Monday (March 31) and said that these places in Haridwar, Dehradun, Nainital, and Udham Singh Nagar districts would be renamed also with the objective of inspiring people by honouring great personalities who contributed to the “preservation of Indian culture”, reported Indian Express.
The places that will be renamed in Haridwar district include – Aurangzebpur ( to be renamed as Shivaji Nagar), Gajiwali (to be renamed as Arya Nagar), Chandpur (to be renamed as Jyotiba Phule Nagar), Mohammadpur Jat (to be renamed as Mohanpur Jat), Khanpur Kursli (to be renamed as Ambedkar Nagar), Indrishpur (to be renamed as Nandpur), Khanpur (to be renamed as Shri Krishna Pur) and Akbarpur Fazalpur (to be renamed as Vijayanagar).
Similarly, the places to be renamed in Dehradun district are Miyanwala (to be renamed as Ramji Wala), Pirwala (to be renamed as Kesari Nagar), Chandpur Khurd (to be renamed as Prithviraj Nagar) and Abdullah Nagar (to be renamed as Daksh Nagar).
In Nainital district, Nawabi Road will be renamed Atal Marg, and the road from Panchakki to ITI will be named as Guru Golwalkar Marg, after the former Sarsanghchalak of the RSS M.S. Golwalkar.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party welcomes this decision. On the one hand, this decision will inspire people by honouring the great personalities who contributed to the preservation of Indian culture, while on the other hand, it will also make them aware of the atrocities committed by foreign invaders,” said Uttarakhand BJP media in-charge Manveer Chauhan, terming the decision as “historic.”
Reacting to the announcement, the Congress said that it “neither supports, nor is against the move.”
“Changing names has become the BJP’s agenda since they have nothing to show in terms of real work. The last eight-and-a-half years have been a complete failure, and the public has been questioning them. To distract the public, they are indulging in this spectacle of changing names,” said senior Congress leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat.
BJP’s renaming spree
In recent years, BJP governments in different states have renamed several places, resulting in criticism from the opposition which has accused it of tampering with history.
Last year, the Samajwadi Party had slammed the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh after the latter decided to rename eight railway stations in the Lucknow division of Northern Railways after saints and freedom fighters.
In 2022, a draft delimitation order issued by the Gorakhpur Municipal Corporation had changed the “Muslim-sounding names” of around a dozen wards.
