BJP Not Done Changing City Names, Wants Agra Renamed to ‘Agrawal’

“The names of many cities are yet to be changed,” BJP lawmaker Sangeet Som said.

File image of the Taj Mahal.

(Photo: iStock)

Speaking at a press conference held in Lucknow on Saturday, BJP lawmaker and representative of the Agra North constituency, Jagan Prasad Garg, demanded the city of Agra be renamed Agrawal. This is yet another city the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government wants to rename, after having changed the names of Allahabad and Faizabad to Prayagraj and Ayodhya respectively.

“Agra has no meaning. You check the name Agra anywhere, what relevance does it have? Earlier there used to be a lot of forests here. And people from the Agarwal community used to live here. So the name should be Agra-van or Agra-wal.”

Jagan Prasad Garg 

But this is not the only demand; BJP leaders have more renaming ideas in mind.

BJP lawmaker from Sardhana, UP, Sangeet Som, wants Muzaffarnagar to become Laxmi Nagar and claims he’s only heeding to the public’s demands. The reason he states is less subtle than Jagan Prasad’s, hence more controversial.

“BJP is just trying to bring back the culture of India, which was deliberately changed by the Muslim rulers to end Hindutva. Therefore, BJP is working just to safeguard and retain the Indian culture back by renaming the cities with their original names (sic).”

BJP’s Sangeet Som speaking to <i>ANI </i>

“The names of many cities are yet to be changed,” he added.

In August this year, the Uttar Pradesh government had sent a request to the centre to rename the airports in Agra, Bareilly and Kanpur. According to reports, the proposal is to rename the Agra airport after Jan Sangh founder Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

The BJP has often justified the changes across Uttar Pradesh, saying they are merely restoring older names and correcting historical distortions.

State’s Response

Uttar Pradesh government spokesperson Shrikant Sharma said, speaking to The Hindu, the government would “definitely consider” more requests to “restore” names of places.

“We are only correcting the mistakes and tampering committed in the past,” he said, adding that the government would take any initiative concerned with “Indian history and culture”.

The BJP-led government faced criticism in the form of ally and cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar, who said in a statement the changing of names was only to distract the oppressed voices from demanding their rights.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)