Expecting to gain electoral mileage in the state before the next assembly polls due in less than seven months, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is planning to change the names of around half a dozen districts following demands by saffron outfits.
According to sources in the government, the districts which are to be rechristened include Sultanpur, Mirzapur, Aligarh, Firozabad and Mainpuri. There was also a proposal to change the names of Ghazipur and Basti districts. The state government had earlier renamed Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya.
Sources said the state cabinet would soon take a call on the renaming proposals.
''There are proposals to rechristen Sultanpur as Kush Bhavanpur, Aligarh as Harigarh, Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar, Firozabad as Chandra Nagar and,'' said Mirzapur as Vindhya Dham, said a BJP leader.
The saffron outfits have also demanded to rechristen Agra as Agravan and Muzaffarnagar as Luxmi Nagar. Miyanganj, a town in the state's Unnao district, is also likely to be christened as Mayaganj.
The Aligarh district panchayat board had recently adopted a resolution recommending changing its name to Harigarh. Similarly a proposal to rename Mainpuri district as 'Mayan Nagar' was also adopted by the district panchayat board of Mainpuri. A few days back, a similar resolution was adopted by the Firozabad district panchayat board demanding that the district be renamed Chandra Nagar.
The proposals assume electoral significance as the state is scheduled to go to 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 opposition parties have termed the proposals as ''electoral gimmicks'' intended to hide the failures of the state government.