Aligarh may be renamed as 'Harigarh' as UP likely to witness another name-changing spree

Lucknow: Amid demand by the saffron outfits for re-christening cities and towns having Muslim names, the Uttar Pradesh government might give nod to a proposal for renaming Aligarh as 'Harigarh'.

The Aligarh Municipal Corporation on Tuesday adopted a resolution recommending to rename Aligarh as Harigarh.

Aligarh Mayor Prashant Singhal said that a proposal in this regard would be sent to the government soon. ''The resolution to rename Aligarh as Harigarh was passed in the meeting of the corporators. The proposal to change the name of Aligarh will be sent to the state government and we hope that it will accept our demand,'' Singhal said.

He said that the demand for renaming Aligarh as Harigarh has been there for a long time.

According to the sources, the resolution was tabled by BJP Corporator Sanjay Pandit and was supported by the saffron party members. The opposition members vehemently opposed the resolution.

UP Chief Minister Yogi 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 to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar and Veerangana Laxmi Bai respectively.

Earlier around a dozen municipal wards with Muslim names were rechristened after Hindu leaders, seers and poets in Gorakhpur, the home town of Yogi Adityanath.

The saffron outfits have demanded to rechristen Sultanpur as Kush Bhavanpur, Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar, Firozabad as Chandra Nagar and Mirzapur as Vindhya Dham. Besides, they have also demanded to rechristen Agra as Agravan and Muzaffarnagar as Luxmi Nagar.

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

UP Deputy Chief Minister Brijesh Pathak had also earlier hinted at renaming Lucknow after Lord Rama's brother Luxman. ''It is a well known fact (that the name of Lucknow was earlier Luxman Nagari). There have been demands to re-name Lucknow. We will take this issue forward according to the situation,'' Pathak had said.

The opposition parties have termed the name changing proposals as ''electoral gimmicks''.