Lucknow: Aligarh will now be renamed as Harigarh and Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar after respective zila panchayats passed resolutions to ‘restore’ old names of these districts in Uttar Pradesh. Both the resolutions were adopted by majority in the first meeting of Zila Panchayat members in each of the districts.
The Zila Panchayats are being headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated chairpersons who were elected amidst large scale incidents of violence last month.
The Aligarh Zila Panchayat is headed by Vijay Singh, wife of BJP Braj Prant Vice President Shyoraj Singh, who presided over the meeting where a resolution to change name of Aligarh to Harigarh was passed with majority votes. The ruling party leaders said the idea is to restore the original name of the district which was named after Swami Haridas.
In a similar exercise in Mainpuri, the newly elected Zila Panchayat chief Archana Bhadauriya presided over the first meeting of Mainpuri Zila panchayat members who unanimously passed resolution to change name of Mainpuri to Mayan Nagar in the name of Mayan Rishi.
Even though the members of Samajwadi Party opposed the move, the resolution was passed by 19 against 11 votes. Both the resolutions have been forwarded to the government for consideration before the state Assembly.
The timing of the resolution is also significant as it comes ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled in the state for next year.
The move marks yet instance of renaming Muslim names cities in Uttar Pradesh to Hindi lexicons. Before this, Allahabad was rechristened to Prayagraj, Faizabad to Ayodhya, Mughalsarai to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar in 2018 after the election of the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in the state in 2017. Web Desk
