The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has changed the names of several places in the states, where the names given by Mughals were removed and renamed to ancient names of various places and districts. However, it seems the Samajwadi Party is not being able to accept these changes, because the party is still using the old names.
Yesterday the Samajwadi Party announced its third list for the Uttar Pradesh elections, containing 56 names. In this official list, the party used the district names Allahabad and Faizabad, which are old names of the districts and are no longer the official names. The new names of the districts are Prayagraj and Ayodhya, but the party refused to use the new official names.
In October 2018, the UP government had announced that Allahabad will be renamed to Prayagraj, which was subsequently approved by the centre. The place, which hosts the Kumbh Mela, was named as Prayagraj till 1575, when it was changed to Allahabad during the rule of Mughal emperor Akbar.
Similarly in November 2018, the Faizabad district in UP was renamed as Ayodhya by the Yogi Adityanath Government, before the historic Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya title suit. It may be noted that the Ayodhya city is located in the Faizabad district, and various organisations were demanding to rename the district as Ayodhya.
But even three years after both the districts were renamed, it seems Samajwadi Party is not able to accept the new names. They obviously love the Mughal given names, and therefore using them in their official documents.
It is notable that while SP does not accept the new names given by the BJP government, the party had renamed much more districts when it was in power. While the BJP govt has renamed only two districts, with demands for renaming more districts still not met, the Akhilesh Yadav govt had renamed as many as nine districts during its tenure.
The SP govt had renamed Prabhuddh Nagar to Shamli, Bhim Nagar to Sambhal, Panchsheel Nagar to Hapur, Mahamaya Nagar to Hathras, Jyotiba Phule Nagar to Amroha, Kanshiram Nagar to Kasganj, Chatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar to Amethi, Ramabai Nagar to Kanpur Dehat and Sant Ravidas Nagar to Bhadohi. SP didn’t rename a single place renamed by Mughals, but had renamed districts that were named after famous personalities etc.
While everyone now uses the new names assigned by the SP govt, now the same party refuses to accept and use new names given by the BJP govt.
The party has released three lists so far, with 159, 39 and 56 names.
