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Hyderabad will be Bhagyanagar when BJP comes to power in Telangana: Yogi
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stated that if the BJP comes to power in Telangana, Hyderabad will be renamed 'Bhagyanagar'. He also criticized the 4% Muslim reservation implemented by the ruling party and called it unconstitutional. Adityanath's remarks were made during a roadshow in Hyderabad ahead of the state's assembly elections on November 30.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said Hyderabad will be renamed ‘Bhagyanagar’ when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power in Telangana.
He also raised the issue of 4 percent Muslim reservation extended by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in the state and termed it ‘unconstitutional’. India’s youngest state, Telangana will have a single phase assembly poll on November 30. The counting of votes will take place on December 3.
“The Congress created Hyderabad. The BRS government here doesn’t let you celebrate September 17, something that would happen when BJP would come to power. We have come to create Bhagyanagar,” Yogi Adityanath said to applause at a roadshow in Goshamahal, a suburb in Hyderabad city.
On September 17, 1948, the then princely state of Hyderabad under Nizam rule had officially merged with the Indian Union. In 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to Hyderabad as ‘Bhagyanagar’ sparking a name-change buzz.
This was the second time that Yogi flagged the issue of name change in Telangana. It was in 2020 that he had first raised the issue while campaigning there for the municipal polls. Back then, he had said that Hyderabad should be renamed ‘Bhagyanagar’ after goddess ‘Bhagyalaxmi’ in whose name a grand temple already exists there.
“Goddess Bhagyalaxmi is here and we (BJP) would name the city after her and this would also be our gift to all the Ram Bhakts in Telangana,” he said during the poll campaign.
Back in U.P., the Yogi government has cleared several name-change proposals notably changing Allahabad to Prayagraj, Faizabad to Ayodhya. Also, there are proposals to rename Aligarh as Harigarh, Mainpuri as Mayan Nagar, Firozabad as Chandra Nagar and Mirzapur as Vidhya Dham.
On Saturday, Yogi also targeted the Muslim quota in Telangana while addressing a rally at Kumuram Bheem in Asifabad district of that state.
“This Muslim reservation is unconstitutional and it should not be allowed to be implemented at any cost, but the ruling BRS and the Congress want to take the country towards a new division,” he said alleging that a “dirty game” of “appeasement” was underway.
“We have seen in Telangana to what extent a government can go to divide the society when the BRS government announces Muslim reservation,” he said soon after arriving in Telangana to a rousing welcome.
“The Muslim reservation is a part of a conspiracy to deprive the Dalits and backward castes of their rights and this is virtually like an insult to the Constitution prepared by Dr Ambedkar. If elected to power, the BJP will abolish the unconstitutional religion-based reservation and distribute the quota benefits among OBCs and Dalits,” he added.
Accusing the Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) government in Telangana of cheating farmers, youth and women, Yogi said it had reneged on its promises made to the youth, farmers and women.
Coining a new term “Bhrashtachari Rishwatkhori Samithi” to describe the ruling BRS, he said the KCR government neither did it provide for employment nor did it provide for water or funds for state’s development.
The issues that the U.P. chief minister raised were the main plank for the creation of a separate Telangana state in 2014. During Yogi’s roadshow in Goshamahal, people were carrying his posters and cut- outs and kept raising ‘Yogi-Yogi’ chants and cheered everything he said.
Yogi also addressed a roadside meeting in Sanath Nagar. Throughout his campaign, he drew cheers as he spoke a bit in Telugu to connect with the audience in the southern state where BJP is up against BRS, Congress and AIMIM, the three political parties the U.P. chief minister targeted.
“These three (parties) are playing with your sentiments and the future of your children,” he said. Describing Telangana as a union of “Prakriti aur Parmatma (Nature and God)”, he went on to state that Telangana would also experience the same benefits that the BJP government has ensured for the common man in Uttar Pradesh.
