Yogi's minister writes Governor to Rename Allahabad as Prayag

With the Kumbh Mela being a few months away, the demand for renaming Allahabad as Prayag has been gaining ground. Health minister Sidharthnath Singh sent a letter to Governor Ram Naik requesting him to take an initiative in this regard.

“ Naik (former MP from Maharashtra) had helped ‘Bombay’ to be renamed as ‘Mumbai’. I have written to him to consider renaming Allahabad as ‘Prayag’, a long pending demand of the saints and people of the city,” Singh said in Lucknow on Monday.

The grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Singh hails from the Sangam City and has been demanding the renaming of Allahabad as Paryag since the BJP came to power in the state.

Earlier, there were reports that the UP cabinet was likely to approve a new name for Allahabad but the proposal was yet to see the light of the day.

Recently, during Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s visit to Allahabad, Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad had urged him to change the name of Allahabad to Prayag before the Kumbh Mela next year. 

President of Akhara Parishad Mahant Narendra Giri said that he had sent the proposal in this regard earlier. “We expect that the Chief Minister will issue orders towards changing the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj,” Giri said.

According to medieval history, Prayagwas renamed as Allahabad by Emperor Akbar in 1580 maintaining that it was a place of Allah (God) and hence it should be known as Allahabad.

Post Kumbh Mela in 2001, then Chief Minister Rajnath Singh and Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri were also in favour of changing the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj but the proposal was shelved.