Uttar Pradesh: The Uttar Pradesh government is likely to rename the Sultanpur district as ‘Kush Bhawanpur’ after Hindu God Ram’s son Kush.
Quoting sources, the Indian Express reported that a proposal for renaming had been sent to the state government by the Uttar Pradesh Board of Revenue and was likely to be taken up in the next Cabinet meeting for approval.
Citing historical records in the district gazetteer, the Sultanpur district administration in a report said the city was known as ‘Kush Bhawanpur’ in 1300 and was governed by the Bhar dynasty until it was invaded by Alauddin Khalji’s army, and was later renamed “Sultanpur”.
The report quoting Sultanpur District Magistrate Raveesh Gupta said: “A few months ago when we looked into the records based on the district gazetteer, it was found that around 1300 during the reign of Alauddin Khilji, the city was razed by his army and has since then been known as Sultanpur.”
“We had submitted these findings to the government a few months ago,” the report quoted Gupta further saying.
On December 21, 2018, the issue of Sultanpur was raised by BJP MLA from Lambhua Deomani Dwivedi in the Assembly. He had claimed that he found some historical records showing that the city was known under different names associated with Kush and demanded that the House unanimously clear the name Kush Bhawanpur, the report said.
Last week, the Zila panchayat of Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh has passed a resolution seeking to change the city’s name to Harigarh, calling it a “long-pending demand”.
“We had a meeting of Zila Panchayat Board yesterday. Some proposals were passed in the meeting, the first proposal was about renaming Aligarh to Harigarh. It was passed unanimously. We’ve sent it to the CM, I hope it’ll be approved,” Financial Express quoted Aligarh District Panchayat President Vijay Singh as saying.
Ever since the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government came to power in 2017, it has changed the names of Allahabad to Prayagraj, Faizabad to Ayodhya and Mughalsarai to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar. It recently recommended changing the name of Jhansi railway station after Rani Laxmi Bai.
The name-changing spree of the UP government has been facing severe criticism from the opposition, which has alleged that the government was more focused on changing names rather than developing the state.
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