In a bid to revive the legacy of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the government has decided to rename the iconic Mughalsarai railway station to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction on Monday. The Uttar Pradesh government had sent a proposal last year regarding renaming the Mughalsarai station in 2017, and the proposal was approved by the centre on 4th June 2018.
The decision had not sat well with the opposition as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party had protested against the decision in 2017.
The station is inextricably attached to the history of one of the tallest leaders of Jan Sangh, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, who is an icon for many nationalists even today. Upadhyaya was found dead in 1968 at this junction, which had raised suspicion among people about the nature of his death.
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s death seems to be a mystery for most of his followers. Upadhyaya was travelling in a Lucknow-Patna train on February 11, 1968, when his dead body was found at a railway track near Mughalsarai station in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The death was investigated by a CBI team constituted by the Indira Gandhi-led government and the investigating team closed the case declaring it as a case of theft resulting in an accident. Two men were arrested and they confessed to having pushed Upadhyaya out of the train because he had caught them stealing his bag and had threatened to report them to the police. But they were both later acquitted of the murder charge due to lack of evidence.
The government also appointed a one-man commission of Justice YV Chandrachud to inquire into the matter. The Commission also more or less agreed with the findings of the CBI.
There are many conspiracy theories about Upadhyaya’s death. Balraj Madhok, one of the founding members of Jan Sangh, has said categorically on many occasions that Upadhyaya’s was a murder, not an accident. In his memoir, he had written about the involvement of certain senior Jan Sangh leaders in the murder. In 1977, the Janata Party government had initiated a fresh inquiry, but it yielded no results.
The BJP had directly blamed Congress for the death of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. The party believes that the growing hegemony of the Jan Sangh leader was a threat to Congress, and was the main reason for his death.
At the time when he brought leaders from the different parties including the likes of Lohia, Kriplani and others to challenge Nehru’s Congress, his death stunned the nation. The mystery of his death and the answers sought by many is yet to be taken to a logical conclusion. The Centre’s decision to rename the junction is a welcome step to honour one of tallest leaders of the country.
