BJP leaders have for long demanded that the name of Telangana's capital Hyderabad be changed to Bhagyanagar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reignited the debate over the saffron brigade's dream of renaming Hyderabad when he referred to the Telangana capital as Bhagyanagar. (Twitter/BJP4Telangana)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reignited the debate over the saffron brigade’s dream of renaming Hyderabad on Sunday, 7 July, when he referred to the Telangana capital as Bhagyanagar during the last day of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting.
Modi said, “As I am in Bhagyanagar, I will especially mention Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, the first home minister of India, as here he coined the term ‘EK Bharat (One India)’. Everyone knows his contribution to the city.”
He added: “It is now the BJP’s historical obligation to build Shrestha Bharat.”
BJP leader and former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters, “Modi mentioned Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar, and it is significant for all of us. Sardar Patel had laid the foundation of a unified India, and now it is the BJP’s responsibility to carry it forward.”
Union minister Piyush Goyal said, “When the BJP comes to power in the state, the chief minister and the cabinet will take the necessary steps to change the name.”
The party has been demanding a change in Hyderabad’s name, and the issue gathered steam after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while campaigning during the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections in 2020, urged voters to elect the BJP so it can change the name once it comes in power.
Political experts believe that the BJP holding its national executive meeting in Hyderabad indicates that the party is gearing up for the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections.
This is the fourth time since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014 that the party has held its National Executive Meeting outside Delhi.
It was held in Odisha in 2017, in Kerala in 2016, and Bengaluru in 2014.
Attacking the BJP, Telangana’s ruling party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), said the national party was trying to disturb Hyderabad’s Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, as it did in other states.
TRS national spokesperson Krishank Manne said, “The social fabric of Hyderabad is a role model for the entire country. In eight years of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s rule, there has been no report of communal tension in the state.”
He added: “The BJP is trying to pave its way into the state through polarisation and communal disorder.”
TRS Rajya Sabha member Damodar Rao Divakonda told South First, “The changing of the name from Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar has a religious angle behind it.”
The TRS leaders also questioned the BJP’s contribution to the development of Hyderabad.
“The BJP does not have anything to campaign on, so it is playing the name-changing game,” said Manne.
“If Modi had any love towards Hyderabad, he would have allocated funds to the state on time,” he added.
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