After renaming Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya, the Yogi Adityanath government is likely to change the name of Basti district to Vashishth Nagar or Vashishthi.
The Basti district administration has sent a proposal to the state government in this regard.
A year back, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had named Basti medical college as Maharishi Vashishth Medical College that led to the demand for renaming the district after the Vedic sage.
A proposal in this regard was sent to the Board of Revenue two months back and it sought some clarifications form the Basti administration.
Official sources said that the cost of renaming the district would be around Rs 1 crore.
It may be mentioned here that BJP MP from Basti, Harish Dwivedi, and BJP MLA Ajay Kumar Singh have already written a letter to Yogi Adityanath demanding renaming of the district.
One of the oldest and most revered Vedic rishis, Vashishth is the subject of many mythologies, according to which he was in possession of divine cow Kamdhenu and her child Nandin who could grant anything to their owners. The sage is famous in Hindu mythology for his legendary conflict with Sage Vishwamitra too. It is believed that the original name of Basti was Vashishthi.