BENGALURU: The North East region of Karnataka will henceforth be called Kalyana Karnataka, and not Hyderabad Karnataka. The state cabinet on Friday approved the renaming of Hyderabad Karnataka Region Development Board as Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board.
Henceforth, Kalyana Karnataka will replace Hyderabad Karnataka on all official communication, including the Act on special status, Law Minister JC Madhuswamy told the media after the cabinet meeting on Friday.
“The new name has been given keeping the importance of Kalyana in mind,” said Rajkumar Patil, BJP MLA from Sedam in Kalaburagi district, who took the lead to approach the government on the renaming.
Patil told The New Indian Express that there are 41 assembly constituencies in these six districts. “The population of about 1.3 crore was demanding that the word Hyderabad not be associated with them,” the MLA said.
Explaining how the name ‘Hyderabad’ stuck to the region, Patil said though the entire country had got Independence in August 1947, this region were still under the control of the Hyderabad Nizams. The Nizams were not ready for a democratic setup and it was only after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s intervention that the region got freedom on September 17, 1948.
In 1956, when Karnataka was formed, this region was included in Karnataka, but since the belt was known as Hyderabad, the name stayed on.
“Now that Hyderabad is not connected to Karnataka, it makes no sense to use the word,’’ Patil said. “We had approached former Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah and H D Kumaraswamy during their tenure, it did not happen. As many as 41 MLAs from this region signed a memorandum and gave it to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa recently, and it was approved. We are going to celebrate September 17 in a big way this year,’’ the MLA added.
6 dists part of region
Six districts are part of NE Karnataka region -- Bidar, Kalaburagi, Ballari, Raichur, Koppal and Yadgir. At Kalyana (now called Basava Kalyana) in Bidar, Basavanna, 12th-century philosopher and social reformer, established Anubhava Mantapa.