Aligarh Nagar Nigam passes resolution seeking change in city's name to 'Harigarh'

The Aligarh Nagar Nigam has passed a resolution that will officially change the name of the city to ‘Harigarh’. The resolution, which was passed on Monday, will be sent to the Uttar Pradesh government for consideration, said BJP corporator Sanjay Pandit, who moved the proposal in this regard. A similar resolution was passed two years ago by the District Panchayat while this year some senior members raised the issue to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during his visit to Aligarh in August. Aligarh, which houses the famous Aligarh Muslim University, was earlier called Ramgarh, according to the UP government website. In the mid-1700s, the city was renamed Aligarh after its most important fort. The first attempt to change the name of Aligarh was made by former chief minister Kalyan Singh in 1992 but he could not succeed as there was a Congress government at the Centre. In 2015, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had also pushed for recognition of the fact that Aligarh’s original name was ‘Harigarh’. The Yogi Adityanth government has already changed the name of Faizabad district to Ayodhya, Allahabad to Prayagraj and rechristened Mughalsarai Junction as Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Junction. With inputs from PTI