With the assembly elections inching closer, the Uttar Pradesh government may rename Azamgarh, the parliamentary constituency of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath threw a hint at this while addressing a public meeting at Azamgarh on Friday by saying, "Azamgarh had an identity crisis during the previous regimes. The residents of the districts were not given rooms in hotels and inns as the district was famous for harbouring terrorists. We have been able to change that. Now a university is coming up here, it appears that Azamgarh will now certainly become Aryangarh."
When Yogi made the announcement, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was also present on the dais.
Since the BJP took over the reign of the state in 2017, the UP government has changed the names of several districts and important places. The state government had earlier rechristened Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya. Only recently Faizabad railway station was rechristened Ayodhya station as Ayodhya Cantonment, and Mughalsarai as Deendayal Upadhaya Nagar. Besides, a few days back, Yogi had hinted at changing the name of Budaun district to Vedamau.
The state government had earlier hinted that the names of Sultanpur, Mirzapur, Aligarh, Firozabad and Mainpuri could also be changed and proposals were sent to rechristen Sultanpur as Kush Bhavanpur, Aligarh as Harigarh, Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar, Firozabad as Chandra Nagar, and Mirzapur as Vindhya Dham. There was also a proposal to change the names of Ghazipur and Basti districts.