LUCKNOW: An Allahabad High Court (HC) lawyer on Friday filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Allahabad HC, challenging the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government’s notification renaming Allahabad as Prayagraj.
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Urban Development Minister Suresh Khanna, have been made party in the PIL. The other respondents in the petition include UP chief secretary, advocate general, chairman of the Board of Revenue, chief secretary (revenue), etc. The court is likely to take up the PIL shortly for hearing.
In the PIL lawyer Sunita Sharma has contended that renaming Allahabad, which is known as it is for hundreds of years, is neither in the interest of the public of the country nor the UP government.
According to the counsel for the petitioner, Vijay Srivastava, other ground taken in the PIL is objection to the declaration of Kumbh, 2019. According to him, it has wrongly been declared as Kumbh. According to the petitioner, the Kumbh has already taken place in 2013, therefore, Ardhkumbh will be held in 2019.
Hence, changing the name of such a huge religious gathering is not proper, the plea said.
On the basis of all these grounds, the petitioner has requested the court to declare the notification of the state government dated October 18, 2018, whereby the name of Allahabad district was changed as Prayagraj, as unconstitutional and illegal.
The proposal to rename the historic city of Allahabad as Prayagraj was opposed by the opposition parties in the state. However, the UP government said it was restoring an old name for the city. “Today, the BJP government has rectified the mistake made by Akbar," a state BJP spokesperson had said.