Taking the line of his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath who has changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad district as Ayodhya, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani too indicated that the State’s biggest city Ahmedabad may be renamed as Karnavati.
On the beginning of Gujarati New Year, the Gujarat CM stated that his Government was seriously mulling to rename Ahmedabad as Karnavati before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Interestingly, around one and half decades ago, the issue of changing the name of Gujarat’s commercial capital as Karnavati was proposed but it was turned down by then Vajpayee Government at the Centre.
In the early nineties when BJP came into power in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) for the first time, AMC had passed a resolution with majority to rename the city as Karnavati. However, the saffron party didn’t have Government in State as well as at the Centre. Finally the issue was again taken up in 2002, but it was turned down by BJP led NDA Government.
In the backdrop of ongoing debates over changing the names of various places in UP, the issue has been again taken up by the Rupani Government. According to CM Rupani he didn’t want to take any chance to rename the city and check all legality aspect before sending the proposal to the Central Government.
Local BJP leaders too are backing Rupani’s view saying that the original name of the city was Karnavati and was named after the king Kranadev in 12th Century. It was Ahmed Shah who conquered the city and surrounding areas in the year 1411 and changed the name of the city as Ahmedabad.It is the matter of millions of Hindus’ pride and most of the people in the city have accepted the original name, said a senior BJP leader adding that if all the legal processes would be completed, Ahmedabad would definitely become Karnavati in near future. On the other hand Opposition Congress party terming the issue of renaming Ahmedabad as political move ahead of LS polls. The issue is being taken up to cash in on votes in the upcoming elections, says former Gujarat Cong chief Arjun Modhvadia.