Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Tuesday cleared the proposal to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj. The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, senior Cabinet minister Siddhartha Nath Singh said, “The renaming of Allahabad as Prayagraj before Kumbh Mela came for approval in the meeting and I am happy to say Allahabad will now be known as Prayagraj.”
“The people of entire Allahabad, the sages and seers wanted that Allahabad should be known as Prayagraj. All the sages and seers had given their unanimous approval for the same,” he added.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on a trip to Allahabad on Saturday, announced there was a proposal to rename the city ahead of the 2019 Kumbh Mela, amid protest from opposition parties.
Earlier, former chief minister and Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav slammed the BJP government, saying it only wanted to show their work by “renaming”.
The Congress party had also opposed the move. Claiming that the name change would affect the history in which Allahabad has played a significant role since the days of Independence, Congress spokesperson Onkar Singh said that the region where Kumbh takes place is already called Prayagraj and if the government is so eager, they can make it a separate city, but the name of Allahabad should not be changed.
In October last year, the Yogi government renamed the Mughalsarai railway station to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) station, seen as a bid by the BJP-led state government to revive the legacy of the Jan Sangh leader who died at the junction in 1968. The proposal to renamed the station was met with strong criticism by the Opposition.