Terming the much talked about proposal moved by a BJP corporator to change the name of the Taj Mahal as Tejo Mahalaya beyond its jurisdiction, the Agra Nagar Nigam (ANN) has dismissed it.
The Agra mayor ruled that changing the name of 17th century monument was beyond the jurisdiction of the elected house of the ANN and as such the proposal was dismissed during house meeting on Wednesday.
Shoba Ram Rathore (60), an elected BJP corporator from ward no. 88 (Harjupura, Tajganj), who had moved the proposal on August 31 this year, read it during the house meeting on October 12. The corporators of opposition parties lodged strong objection to the proposal, saying it unnecessarily dragged the world acclaimed monument into a controversy.
“Such a controversy will only bring bad name for the nation globally and will harm the image of Taj Mahal which at present is a must visit destination for foreigners coming to India,” said an opposition party corporator.
There prevailed a situation of conflict for some time till Agra mayor Naveen Jain ruled that the proposal could not be entertained for discussion in house as changing the name of the Taj Mahal was beyond jurisdiction of ANN—a local body. The proposal was thus dropped as dismissed. The proposal could not be taken up for discussion the day it was first moved as the ANN house was adjourned for indefinite period after a chaos over some other proposal.
{{/usCountry}}There prevailed a situation of conflict for some time till Agra mayor Naveen Jain ruled that the proposal could not be entertained for discussion in house as changing the name of the Taj Mahal was beyond jurisdiction of ANN—a local body. The proposal was thus dropped as dismissed. The proposal could not be taken up for discussion the day it was first moved as the ANN house was adjourned for indefinite period after a chaos over some other proposal.
{{/usCountry}}“The proposal was moved to change the name of Taj Mahal to Tejo Mahalaya which is the actual name of this structure. How can a place of burial be called a ‘mahal’ (palace) which was in fact the property of Raja Jai Singh usurped by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan whose wife’s name was Arjumand Bano and not Mumtaz as wrongly mentioned in the annals of history,” claimed Rathore in his proposal.
“The wife of Shah Jahan died in Burhanpur, 22 years before the creation of Taj Mahal, and a tomb exists there of Arjumand Bano. It is doubtful as to how the body of the deceased wife of the emperor was preserved for over two decades and as such it is all part of fabricated story. It has been denied by known historian PN Oak in his book wherein the veteran historian has claimed that the structure of Taj Mahal is actually a Hindu temple “Tejo-Mahalaya” encroached upon by the Mughal ruler in power and he named it as Taj Mahal,” he had claimed.
Since the day the proposal was moved, there were different opinions on such proposal being viable in elected house of the Nagar Nigam as Taj Mahal is a protected monument under supervision of Archaeological Survey of India, a central government body run by the ministry of culture, and has till date denied to accept the theory of Taj Mahal being a temple.
In May this year, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court had dismissed a petition claiming that Taj Mahal was built after demolishing a temple and the court, while taking a strict view, had asked the petitioner to not make mockery of public interest litigation system.
The petitioner, Rajneesh Singh, a BJP worker had sought directive to open what he claimed were 22 locked underground rooms below the main mausoleum having idols of Hindu deities but the petition failed.
Besides, a litigation is still on in civil courts of Agra wherein certain lawyers have filed the petition considering Taj Mahal as Tejo Mahalaya and have sought a ban on ‘namaz’ being offered at the mosque on the Taj Mahal premises, and also to get the structure declared a Hindu temple as also propagated by various right wing bodies lodging protest at Taj Mahal every now and then.